■04'. 

■66:: '■^ '''y.-Z::'^ 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

V^'Sfe* 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BY A. J. GEORGE, A.M. 



WORDSWORTH'S PRELUDE. With Notes. 
SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. With Notes. 
WORDSWORTH'S PREFACES AND ESSAYS ON POETRY. 

With Notes. 
SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. With Notes. 
TENNYSON S PRINCESS. With Notes. 
COLERIDGE'S CRITICAL ESSAYS. (From Biographia Literaria ) 

With Notes. 
BURKE'S SPEECHES ON THE AMERICAN WAR, AND LETTER 

TO THE SHERIFFS OF BRISTOL. With Notes. 
BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. With 

Notes. 
SELECT SPEECHES OF DANIEL WEBSTER. With Notes. 
THE BUNKER HILL ORATION. With Notes. 
SYLLABUS OF ENGLISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE. 

In Preparation. 

Wordsworth's Excursion and White Doe of Rylstone. 

Select Poems of Coleridge. 

The History and Literature of Scotland : 

I. The Highlands, II. Border. 



SELECT POEMS 



OF 



ROBERT BURNS 

ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER ' 

WITH 

INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND A GLOSSARY 

BY 

ANDREW J. GEORGE, M.A. 

r 



' A e night V the gloaming, as late I passed by, 
A lassie sang siveet as site milkit her kye. 
An' this was her sang, %uhile tJie tears dowft did fcC , 
O thcre''s fuie bard d' Nature sbi' Kobiji's awa\" 




BOSTON, U.S.A. 
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

1896 






Copyright, 1896, 
By Andrew J. George. 



TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON, BOSTON. 
PKESSWORK BY S. J. PARKHILL & CO. 



^ 



i 



TO 



ROBERT HUDSON GEORGE. 



A Lad who loves Burns. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



Scotland may well be proud when she remembers the chil- 
dren who have shed such lustre upon her land of mist-shrouded 
mountains, of peaceful and solemnly beautiful valleys, of storied 
and romantic streams. From the Valley of the Ettrick to Niths- 
dale, from Ben Lomond to CriiTers hoary top, from St. Mary's 
Loch to the banks and braes of the Doon, one finds, — 

" Fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom, 
For sportive youth to stray in ; 
For manhood to enjoy his strength, 
And age to wear away in." 

Here nature and man work together in producing for the atten- 
tive and the sympathetic an eloquence of glorious and bewitch- 
ing sights and sounds, of beautiful and ennobling reflections. 

" And what, for this frail world, were all 
That mortals do or suffer, 
Did no responsive harp, no pen. 
Memorial tribute offer .? " 

In a single century Scotland has enriched the blood of the 
world with the nobility and fascination of Scott, the passion and 
pathos of Burns, the vision and message of Carlyle, the sweet- 
ness and simplicity of Dr. John Brown, the health and hope of 
Shairp, the intellectual and moral vigor of Blackie, and the jo}'- 
ousness and grace of Stevenson : even now she has children 
who are the delight of her home, and who are nobly loyal to the 
mother's teaching and the mother's example. 

V 



vi EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

The Muse of Coila early introduced into her mysteries the 
most wayward and most loving, the most passionate and most 
penitent, of this various and richly endowed family ; and finally 
she crowned him lam-eate of her native land. 

'"Wear thou this,' she solemn said, 

And bound the holly round his head." 

That Robbie Burns is the idol of Scotland few who have 
had the privilege of knowing the Scotch people will venture to 
gainsay ; and hence it is worth our while to study the forces at 
work in Scottish life and literature which contributed to the 
fashioning of such a character. 

On Aug. 1 8, 1803, the day after Wordsworth and his sister 
had visited the grave of Burns in the churchyard of Dumfries, 
they were wandering on the banks of the Nith, and reviewing 
the life and work of the Ploughman Poet, when they gave 
utterance to the most distinctly human note in literary criticism 
that had hitherto been heard. It was a prophecy of what the 
method and the function of criticism in the nineteenth century 

were to be. 

" Leaving each unquiet theme, 
Where gentlest judgment may misdeem. 
And prompt to welcome every gleam 
Of good and fair ; 



Think rather of those moments bright. 
When to the consciousness of right. 

His course was true, 
When Wisdom prospered in his sight, 

And Virtue grew." 

Standing as we do, a century away from the death of Burns, 
we are getting a truer perspective of his life and mission ; we 
are coming to understand those subtle forces which played in 
and around his varied and eventful life, and which created the 
first fine careless rapture. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. Vll 

The influences which quicken and nourish poetic genius are 
often as silent and unobtrusive as those whicli sun and dew 
exert upon the growing plant. This analogy is strikingly sug- 
gestive in the case of Burns. For us, whose tables are loaded 
with the literature of prose and verse, and in whose education 
the poets play so great a part, it is difficult to imagine a time 
when books were scarce, and when the literary poets played but 
little part in the life of the people. But we have only to go back 
to the middle of the last century to find just such a condition, 
both in England and in Scotland. In both nations literary 
poetry was of little influence with the people, but as if to com- 
pensate for this lack of power there was a noble revival of pop- 
ular song and ballad. Percy's Reliqties and Herd's Collection of 
Scottish Songs stimulated interest in — 

" Old, unhappy, far-off things 
And battles long ago." 
or in — 

" Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain. 
That has been, and may be again." 

Burns was thus fortunate in the time and place of his birth — 

"Our Monarch's hindmost year but ana 
Was five-and-twenty days begun, 
'Twas then a blast o' Janwar win' 
Blew hansel in on Robin." 

His stormy advent into the world was but the prelude to a 
still more turbulent life among men ; vet out of this storm and 
turbulence was generated a poetry sweetly simple, grandly virile, 
nobly human. It was his mission to teach — 

" How verse may build a princely throne 
On humble truth." 

The atmosphere of the home in which he grew up was charged 
with the rapture and the religion of popular song. These songs, 



Vlii EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

which came to him from his mother as she rocked his cradle, 
from old Jenny Wilson who beguiled his youth, and later from 
Ramsay and Fergusson, touched every fibre of his nature, and 
made it vibrate to the personal note of each. 

" Fresh as the flower whose modest worth 
He sang, his genius ' glinted ' forth, 
Rose like a star that touching earth, 

For so it seems. 
Doth glorify its humble birth 

With matchless beams." 

Murdock, the accomplished teacher of Burns, says that in the 
two-roomed cottage, that tabernacle of clay, there dwelt a larger 
portion of content than in any palace in Europe. Burns in- 
herited from his father a love of justice — which gave even the 
' Deir his due — a deeply religious nature, strength, and pride; 
and from his mother, a handsome face, laughing dark eyes, 
sweet voice, tender sensibility, and wunsome manner. " The 
magic of that presence," says Charles Kingsley, "made Burns 
both tempter and tempted, and may explain manv a sad story." 
Created with such a nature, and endowed with such faculties, 
he was foreordained to restore the element of passion, the 
personal note to our poetry. 

The interest which his work has for us is first of all Per- 
sonal, as it is a revelation of his own joys and sorrows, hopes 
and fears ; then the interest becomes National, when it voices 
the passion and the pathos of the people ; and lastly it be- 
comes Universal, in that it reflects the general heart of human 
kind. 

This Ayrshire singer restored the personal note — passion — 
to our poetry ; he purified, dignified, elevated, and enriched 
Scottish song, and made it distinctly national ; he rose above 
the personal and the national into the sphere of the universal, 
by the sincerity, variety, and depth of his love of man. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. IX 

Our homely New England poet has selected the personal in 
Burns's work as its chief title to immortality. He says : — 

" Give lettered pomp to teeth of time, 
So ' Bonnie Doon ' but tarry ; 
Blot out the epic's stately rhyme, 
But spare his Highland Mary.'' 

It is the characteristic of lyric poetry that it is personal not 
only, but passionate. Given, therefore, Burns's intense, almost 
volcanic, nature, set in an environment of song, and we can be 
sure that a prince of lyrists will be evolved. When we read 
those verses which he wrote before the thought of publishing 
came to him, and when he rhymed for fun, we get the clearest 
revelation of the man. 

Now, this personal note comprises three great subjects, — 
Nature, Man, and God, and reveals itself as the poet's art, his 
politics, and his religion. Fortunately for us and for Burns 
these interests had never been absent from the poetry of Scot- 
land ; it had always reflected the lights and shadows of the 
landscape, the aims and aspirations of the people ; it was beauti- 
ful, social, religious. 

In the earliest raptures of the Scottish Gael as he prepared 
for the combat or returned victorious over his enemy ; in the 
later and more subdued note of love for nature and man ; and, 
in the latest of all, in the deep despair of the race as it fiides 
away before the inevitable, — we find a revelation of man's varied 
interest and activity. 

In the following description of Cuchullin, the leader of the 
warriors of Ulster, we have the rapidity, the directness, the sim- 
plicity, and the nobility of Homer : — 

" In the chariot is seen the chief, 
True, brave son of the keen-cutting brand, 
Cuchullin, of blue dappled shields. 
Son of Semo, renowned in song. 



X EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

His cheek like the polished yew ; 

Clear, far-ranging his eye, 

Under arched, dark, and slender brow, 

His yellow hair down-streaming from his head, 

Falls round the glorious face of man. 

As he draws his spear from his back." i 

In the Aged BafcCs Wish we get the intense love of nature 
and the magical charm so characteristic of the Gaelic. 



*i3' 



" O place me by the purling brook 
That wimples gently down the lea, 
Under the old tree's branchy shade, 
And thou, bright sun, be kind to me. 

Where I may hear the waterfall. 

And the hum of its falling wave. 

And give me the harp, and the shell, and the shield, 

Of my sires in the strife of the brave." ^ 

In the latest of the bards, Duncan Ban, "Fair Duncan of 
the Songs," as the Highlanders call him, we have an artist 
whose delight is to sketch the deer, the fox, and the roe : — 

" Tis a nimble little hind. 
Giddy-headed like her kind. 
That goes sniffing up the wind 

In her scorning ; 
With her nostrils sharp and keen, 
Somewhat petulant I ween, 
'Neath the crag's ruin she is seen 
• In the morning ; 

For she feareth to come down 
From the broad and breezy crown 

Of Ben Dorain, 
Lest the hunter's cruel shot 
In the low encircled spot 
Should be pouring. 

1 Dr. Clerk. 2 j. s. Blackie. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. XI 

She hath breath in breast at will 
As she scampers o'er the hill 

Without panting, — 
Ruddy wealth of healthy blood 
From the lusty fatherhood 
Of Ben Dorain's antlered brood 

Finely vaunting." i 

It was such work as this that won for him in our day the 
title " The Burns of the Highlands." In his Last Leave-taking 
of the Moimtaijis, wnii&n after his farewell visit to the old re- 
sorts of Glenorchy in 1802, we hear the pathetic wail of a race 
slowly passing from its native glens. 

" Yestreen as I walked the mountain 
O the thoughts that arose in me ; 
For the people I loved that used to be there 
In the desert, no more could I see. 

When I looked round on every side, 

How could I feel but drear ! 

For the woods and the heather all were gone, 

And the men were no longer there. 

My farewell then to the forests. 

And the marvellous mountains there, 

Where the green cresses grow, and the clear wells flow, 

Draughts gentle, and kingly, and fair. 

Ye pastures beyond all price ! 

Wilderness wide and free. 

On you, since I go to return no more, 

My blessing forever be." 2 

"The Celt's quick feeling for what is noble and distinguished gave 
his poetry style [says Matthew Arnold] ; his indomitable person- 
ality gave it pride and passion; his sensibility and nervous exaltation 
gave it a better gift still, — the gift of rendering with wonderful fe- 
licity the magical charm of nature. Magic is just the word for it, — 
the magic of nature, her weird power and her fairy charm," 

1 J. S. Blackie. 2 j. c. Shairp. 



xil EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

The poetry of the Highlands was the folk-song and the 
ballad ; that of the Lowlands was of two varieties, — literary and 
popular. The literary impulse came from Chaucer through 
James I. ; but the popular poetry — the song and ballad — was 
the product of the soil. Beginning with the unknown min- 
strel of the border, and continuing in Ramsay and Fergusson, it 
culminated in Burns and Scott. That the influence of the 
Highland song and ballad upon the spirit of the Lowlands 
was considerable, there can be but little doubt ; it certainly cast 
some glorious gleams, such as the far-off Highland Bens reflect 
upon the plains and lowlier hills of the south. 

The Celt powerfully affected English poetry. Mr. Arnold 
says, — 

"It is in our poetry that the Celtic part in us has left its traces 
clearest. If I were asked where English poetry got these three things, 
— its turn for style, its turn for melancholy, and its turn for natural 
magic, for catching and rendering the charm of nature in a wonder- 
fully new and vivid way, — I should answer with some doubt that it 
got much of its turn for style from a Celtic source ; with less doubt 
that it got much of its melancholy from a Celtic source; with no 
doubt at all that from a Celtic source it got nearly all its natural 



How much more, then, must have been the Celtic influence 
upon Lowland Scotch. 

We must not forget that the chief Celtic influence upon the 
Lowlands was that of the Cymri. The Cymri, under the leader- 
ship of the British Guledig, Arthur, founded the kingdom of 
Strathclyde in the sixth century. Here Arthur fought his twelve 
great battles for Celtic independence ; and here arose that 
mighty impulse to romance which, coincident with the defeat 
and exile of the Cymri of the Tweed, gradually revealed itself 
in tliat cycle of Arthurian legends which has fed the imagina- 
tion of the modern world. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. XI 11 

Here, too, in the early conflict of Christianity with heathen- 
ism, there arose the weird and fascinating figures. Merlin, St. 
Cuthbert, and St, Kentigern, who live and move in a halo of 
religious mysticism, and who, by the genius of Scott, have 
made Whitby, Lindsfarne, and Melrose sacred in history and 
poetry. 

Prof. Veitch says : — 

" Our life is continuous with theirs: perhaps it is so through blood 
and imaginative impulses, which now and again have made their ap- 
pearance in the course of our literature, in our sentiment, in our mel- 
ancholy and despair, and in our defiant protest against the despotism 
of fact in the interests of memory, or of a higher ideal. If we wish to 
recur to the fountain whence have sprung Arthurian tradition and its 
accompanying weird and heroic ideals, if we wish to see the first out- 
wellings of that romance which has raised us above self and common- 
place and conventionalism, which has influenced English poetry from 
Chaucer to Tennyson, we must go back to that Cymric people who 
loom so dimly in the early dawn of our history, who showed a spirit 
of defence, who suffered so greatly and bore so patiently, and in 
exile longed so grandly and hoped so nobly for the sight of their 
native hills. The fountains of romance for Britain and for Europe 
first opened amid the southern uplands of the kingdom of Strath- 
clyde." 

When the riches of this noble house, and of that sister house 
of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, awaited union in 
a royal heir, there came a peasant lad from the " auld clay big- 
gin' " in Ayrshire, who, with the simple and graceful dignity of 
one of nature's noblemen, claimed his own, and there was added 
a new hereditary peer to the House of Fame. The new heir 
used these riches not like a prodigal, but with prudence and 
diligence, and left them to his successor increased by the usury 
of genius. He had added " the light, the gleam, that never was 
on sea or land, the consecration and the poet's dream." 

It is of importance that we recognize the fact that in Burns 



XIV EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

the two literary estates, English and Scottish, were united. 
Until his time there was a sharp distinction between Scottish 
and English literature ; but after him the literature of the two 
countries became one, both in nature and in name. This was 
but natural when we consider that somethins; of the original 
impulse which moved Burns's genius was English. Professor 
Minto says : — 

*' Burns's poetry is not a mere freak of nature, a thing sui generis^ 
but an organic part of the body of English literature, with its attach- 
ments or points of connection only slightly disguised by difference of 
dialect. It drew its inspiration from literature, and it became in its 
turn a fruitful source of inspiration to two great poets of the next 
generation, — Wordsworth and Byron." 

Let us now see what Burns himself says of the inheritance 
which came to him. He says : — 

" What I knew of ancient story was gathered from Salmon and 
Guthrie's Geographical Grammars, and the ideas I had formed of 
modern manners, of literature, and criticism, I got from the Specta- 
tor. These, with Pope's Works, some plays of Shakespeare, Tull and 
Dickson on Agriculture., The Heathen Pantheon, Stackhouse's History 
of the Bible, Boyle's Lecticres, Allan Ramsay's Works, and a select 
collection of English songs, formed the whole of my reading." 

To Robert Ainslie he wrote : — 

" Let me quote you my two favorite passages, which, though I have 
repeated them ten thotcsand times, still they rouse my manhood and 
steel my resolution like inspiration : — 

' On Reason build resolve, 
That column of true majesty in man.' 

Young. 
' Here, Alfred, hero of tlie state, 
Thy genius Heaven's high will declare-, 
The triumph of the truly great 
Is never, never to despair ! 
Is never to despair ! ' 

Thomson : Masque of Alfred." 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. XV 

Again he says : — 

" My favorite authors are of the sentimental kind, such as Shen- 
stone, particularly his Elegies ; Thomson's Man of Feelings a book I 
prize next to the Bible; Man of the World ; Sterne, especially his 
Sentimenial yourney ; yiz.c^hQxsoxi's Ossian, etc. These t^xq glorious 
models, after which I endeavor to form my conduct; and 'tis incongru- 
ous, 'tis absurd, to suppose that the man whose mind glows with senti- 
ments lighted up at their sacred flame; the man whose heart distends 
with benevolence to all the human race, he who can soar above this 
little scene of things — can he descend to mind the paltry concerns 
about which the terrsefilial race fret and fume and vex themselves! 
Oh, how the glorious triumph swells my heart ! I forget that I am a 
poor, insignificant devil, unnoticed and unknown, stalking up and 
down fairs and markets, when I happen to be in them, reading a page 
or two of mankind, and 'catching the manner, living as they rise,' 
whilst the men of business jostle me on every side as an idle incum- 
brance in their way." 

At another time he writes : — 

*' The earliest composition that I recollect taking pleasure in was 
The Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's beginning, — 

' How are thy servants blest, O Lord ! ' 

I particularly remember one half-stanza which was music to my boyish 

ear, — 

' For though in dreadful whirls we hung 

High on the broken wave'" — 

The second, or National, character of Burns's poetry is quite 
as logically the result of his environment as was the personal. 
Most of the popular poetry of Scotland had been born in con- 
flict, political or religious ; and as a natural consequence Burns 
became a reformer and a patriot. He writes of some early 
influences in this direction as follows : — 

" The first two books I ever read in private, which gave me more 
pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were The Life of 



xvi EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

Hannibal and The Hisio7-y of ]Villiain Wallace. Hannibal gave my 
young ideas such a turn that I used to strut in raptures up and down 
after the recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to 
be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice 
into my veins which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life 
shut in eternal rest." 

Perhaps Burns's chief claim to national recognition la}- in what 
he did to preserve the native Scottish dialect from passing into 
disuse, and to make it classical. He gave it much the same 
relation to English as that which the Doric held to Attic Greek. 
Of his work here Emerson says : — 

" He grew up in a rural district, speaking 2, patois unintelligible to 
all but natives, and he has made the Lowland Scotch a Doric dialect 
of fame. It is the only example in history of a language made classic 
by the genius of a single man. But more than this. He had that 
secret of genius to draw from the bottom of society the strength of its 
speech, and astonish the ears of the polite with these artless words, 
better than art, and filtered of all offence through his beauty. It 
seemed odious to Luther that the Devil should have all the best tunes; 
he would bring them into the churches; and Burns knew how to take 
from fairs and gypsies, blacksmiths and drovers, the speech of the 
market and street, and clothe it with melody." 

On the publication of the first edition of his poems at Kil- 
marnock, in 1786, his national fame began; and when this was 
followed by his visit to Edinburgh, and the second edition of 
his poems, printed in 1787, his national recognition was com- 
plete : he became the observed of all observers throughout old 
Scotia. 

In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop the poet writes : — 

"The appellation of a Scottish bard is by far my highest pride; 
to continue to deserve it my most exalted ambition." 

*' At this time [says Professor Shairp], there was a set of literary 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. xvii 

men in Edinburgh who as to national feeling were entirely colorless, 
— Scotchmen in nothing except their dwelling-place. The thing they 
most dreaded was to be convicted of a Scotticism. Among these 
learned cosmopolitans in walked Burns, who, with the instinct of gen- 
ius, chose for his subject that Scottish life which they ignored, and for 
his vehicle that vernacular which they despised, and who, touching the 
springs of long-forgotten emotions, brought back on the hearts of his 
countrymen a tide of patriotic feeling to which they had long been 
strangers." 

Lockhart says : — 

" Burns revived Scottish nationality which was falling asleep on the 
graves of the Stuarts." 

By thus placing the Lowland vernacular upon a national 
basis, by making it, and the sentiments it revealed, classic, 
Burns secured his title to Universality. Through him Scotland's 
hills and vales, her woods and streams, her men and women, 
became the friends of the race ; and a new world of sights and 
sounds, of joys and sorrows, was brought to every reader of his 

work. 

*' We love him, praise him, just for this : 
In every form and feature, 
Through wealth and want, through woe and bliss, 
He saw his fellow-creature." 

When we find that the poets more than any other teachers 
reveal us to ourselves by revealing the unity of the race in the 
brotherhood of admiration, hope, and love, we take them to our 
hearts, and they become the most potent forces in our educa- 
tion, — all the more potent because silent and unobtrusive. 
Emerson says : — 

" Every man's, every boy's and girl's head carries snatches of Burns's 
songs, and they say them by heart, and, what is strangest of all, never 
learned them from a book, but from mouth to mouth. The wind 
whispers them, the birds whistle them, the corn, barley, and bulrushes 



xviii EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

hoarsely rustle them, nay, the music-boxes of Geneva are framed and 
toothed to play them, the hand-organs of the Savoyards in all cities 
repeat them, and the chimes of bells ring them in spires. They are 
the property and solace of mankind." 

The years 1785 and 1786 are memorable in the history of 
English poetry ; for they mark the first culmination of that move- 
ment toward Nature, Man, and God which began in England 
with Gray and Goldsmith, and in Scotland with Ramsay and 
Thomson. 

In 1785 Cowper published The Task, and in 1786 Burns 
gave to the world the first edition of his poems. Each poet 
wrought at his task unconscious of the existence of the other. 
The one in the dewy meadows of Buckinghamshire, and the 
other on the Ayrshire hills, saw Nature as she had not been 
seen since the time of Chaucer — in all her freshness and 
beauty — and by so revealing it made poetry simple and natural, 
strong and healthful, with the health and the strength of youth. 

Cowper — 

" Loved the rural walk through lanes 
Of grassy swarth, close cropped by nibbling sheep. 
And skirted thick with intertexture firm 
Of thorny boughs ..... 
O'er hills, through valleys, and by river's brink." 

He loved to tend the hare which he had saved from the 

hunter, — 

" One sheltered hare 
Has never heard the sanguinary yell 
Of cruel man exulting in her woes. 
Yes — thou may'st eat thy bread, and lick the hand 
That feeds thee ; thou may'st frolic on the floor 
* At evening, and at night retire secure 

To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarmed." 

Burns loved to wander, — 

" Whyles owre the linn the burnie plays, 
As thro' the glen it wimpl"t ; 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. xix 

Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays, 
Whyles in a wiel it dimpPt ; 
Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, 
Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle ; 
Whyles cookit underneath the braes. 
Below the spreading hazel. 

Unseen that night." 

In the winter night when "doors and whinnock rattle" lie 

thought — 

" On the ourie cattle 
Or silly sheep, wha bide the brattle 

O' winter war. 
And thro' the drift, deep-laiving, sprattle 

Beneath a scaur." 

Again by revealing that the hearts as tender and true beat 
under hodden gray as under royal robes, these singers made 
poetry democratic : 

" He is the freeman whom the truth makes free. 
He looks abroad into the varied field 
Of nature, and though poor, perhaps, compared 
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, 
Calls the delightful scenery all his own." 

COWPER. 

" Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 

'An honest man's the noblest work of God ; ' 

And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road. 

The cottage leaves the palace far behind." 

Burns. 

And lastly, by teaching that God's love was revealed in nature, 
in animal life, and in man, that, — 

" God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear, 
To give sign we and they are his children, one family here." 

They made poetry reflect, as never before, the religion of 
Christ. 



XX EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

The one indignantly protests : — 

" My ear is pain'd, 
My soul is sick with every day's report 
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled ; 
Man devotes his brother and destroys. 

And what man seeing this, 
And having human feelings, does not blush 
And hang his head to think himself a man ? " 

The other with his sweet sympathy for his erring brother 

says : — 

" Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 

Decidedly can try us, 
He knows each chord its various tone, 

Each spring its various bias ; 
Then at the balance let's be mute, 

We never can adjust it ; 
What's do7te we partly may compute. 

But know not what's resisted!''' 

I have said that these poets never met, and that each lived 
and loved and sang almost unconscious of the existence of the 
other. It seems that Cowper read Burns's poems in July, 1787, 
for he then wrote : — 

" I have read Burns's poems twice, and I think them on the whole 
a very extraordinary production. He is, I believe, the only poet these 
kingdoms have produced in the lower rank of life since Shakespeare 
who need not be indebted for any part of his praise to a charitable 
consideration of his origin, and the disadvantages under which he has 
labored." 

How soon it was after the publication of Cowper's Task 
that it found Burns we cannot tell; but in 1795 he wrote his 
friend, Mrs. Dunlop, as follows : — 

" How do you like Cowper? Is not The Task a glorious poem? 
The religion of The Task, bating a few scraps of Calvinistic divinity, 
is the religion of God and nature; the religion that exalts, that en- 
nobles man." 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. XXI 

In this centenary year, when lovers of Burns are vying with 
each other in manifestations of loyalty to his memory, I have 
wished to reveal my appreciation of him as a teacher of men by 
reproducing something of the old and true rather than by intro- 
ducing anything strange and new. My experience of twenty 
years in teaching Burns has convinced me that he is one of the 
poets whose best work, by its inimitable magic of style and mel- 
ody of verse, together with that absolute frankness and honesty 
of purpose which delights in being simple and natural, is admi- 
rably fitted to kindle in young people a love of simple pleasures 
and of home-bred sense which is the characteristic of the truly 
great of all time. 

Because of the difficulty of selecting poems for class use, 
and because of the time lost in looking up the individual poems, 
which in various editions appear under different titles, I have 
at last decided to bring together such poems as I have found 
suitable for the class-room and the home. Burns more than any 
other English poet needs to be read in selections, for his work 
is exceedingly uneven both in form and content. I have en- 
deavored to select such poems as by " truth and seriousness of 
subject, beauty and felicity of form," belong to the literature 
oi power. I cannot hope to have included all that the special 
student of Burns would like, yet I trust that even he will not 
miss many of his favorites. 

My end will be accomplished if the reader is led to make 
friends with this "lightly moved and all-conceiving spirit," and 
thus to become a lover of the matchless melody of a master of 
song. 

In his verse and prose Burns is his own portrait-painter ; the 
notes give to each poem its setting of natural, personal, and 
historical associations, out of which its pathos and power were 
created, and thus they are largely biographical. At the same 
time there is gathered a body of opinion in regard to the mis- 
sion and message of Burns which may prove of value in con- 



XXll EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

firming or correcting opinions already held. Such notes ought 
never to be assigned as a part of the study of Burns. If the 
pupil comes to them naturally from the reading of the text, well 
and good ; they may then be of service ; but unless this be the 
case they should be left unread. In that holy communion where 
there is reading that is worthy of the name, nothing should 
come between the pupil and the author. I believe with that 
clear-headed and stout-hearted Scot, John Stuart Blackie, that 
there is nothing so helpful towards the living a noble life "as a 
memory well stored with sacred texts, and an imagination well 
decorated with heroic pictures." 

The teacher of English literature needs two qualifications 
above all others, — a passion for the subject, which is born of 
long and loving intimacy, and a willingness to keep himself in 
the background where he may constantly watch the direction 
and tendency of the pupil, only now and then interfering for the 
purpose of giving wider vision, or of intensifying the interest. 
If it be genius that is required to teach English literature, it is 
the genius which Alexander Hamilton describes when he says : — 

*' All the genius I have lies just in this : when I have a subject in 
hand I study it profoundly day and night. It is a part of me ; I ex- 
plore it in all its bearings ; my mind becomes pervaded with it. Then 
the effort which I make people are pleased to call the fruit of genius ; 
it is the fruit of labor and thought." 

The story of the "architectonics" of poetry — its art and 
technique — has little place in the handling of Burns, who wrote 
not for the eye but for the ear. The essential difference be- 
tween the songs of Burns and the songs of Tennyson — each 
perfect after its kind — is that the one is an inspiration, the 
other an art. If we compare the songs in the Princess with 
those in this volume, we shall see the distinction of kind clearly 
marked. Tennyson is the artist who consciously selects his 
subjects for definite purposes, fashions and refashions the verse, 



EDITOR 'S PREFACE. XX 111 

which depends largely for its effectiveness upon what Mr. Sted- 
man calls " the obvious repetends and singing bars, the stanzaic 
effect, the use of open vowel sounds and other matters instinc- 
tive with song-makers." 
Tennyson says : — 

"There was a period in my life when as an artist, Turner, for in- 
stance, takes rough sketches of landskip, etc., in order to work them 
eventually into some great picture, so I was in the habit of chronicling, 
in four or five words or more, whatever might strike me as picturesque 
in nature." 

The mood of Burns, on the contrary, reminds us of that 
given by Plato in loii when Socrates says : — 

"All good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful 
poems, not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed; and as 
the Corybantian revellers, when they dance, are not in their right 
mind, so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when they are 
composing their beautiful strains; but when falling under the power of 
music and metre they are inspired and possessed." 

Listen now to Burns as he gives the occasion of one of his 
lyrics : — 

** I had roved out, as chance directed, in the favorite haunts of my 
muse, on the banks of the Ayr, to view nature in all the gayety of the 
vernal year. The evening sun was flaming over the distant western 
hills; not a breath stirred the crimson opening blossom, or the verdant 
spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for a poetic heart. I listened 
to the feathered warblers, pouring their harmony on every hand, with 
a congenial, kindred regard, and frequently turned out of my path 
lest I should disturb their little songs, or frighten them to another 
station. ' Surely,' said I to myself, ' he must be a wretch indeed, who, 
regardless of your harmonious endeavor to please him, can eye your 
elusive flights to discover your secret recesses, and to rob you of all 
the property nature gives you, — your dearest comforts, your hapless 



XXIV EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

nestlings. Even the hoary hawthorn twig that shot across the way, 
what heart at such a time but must have been interested in its welfare, 
and wished it preserved from the rudely browsing cattle, or the with- 
ering eastern blast? ' Such was the scene, and such the hour, when in 
a corner of my prospect I spied one of the fairest pieces of nature's 
workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape or met a poet's 
eye. What an hour of inspiration for a poet ! It would have raised 
plain, dull, historic prose into metaphor and measure. The enclosed 
song was the work of my return home, and perhaps it but poorly 
answers what might have been expected from such a scene." 

How unnatural it is to subject work done under such condi- 
tions to the analysis of the modern literary germ hunter. Let 
us be content to enjoy the things that such minds profess to 
understand, and if they demur at the principles here laid down 
let us reply with the youngest of our poets : — 

" Ye hug the wealth ye cannot use, 

And lack the riches all may gain, — 
O blind and wanting wit to choose, 

Who house the chaff and burn the grain! 
And still doth life with starry towers 

Lure to the bright, divine ascent ! — 
Be yours the things ye would : be ours 

The things that are more excellent." 

The local setting of the poems is partly from historical sources 
and partly the result of my visits to the land of Burns for the 
purpose of getting nearer to the heart of the poet and the scenes 
of his toil and his inspiration. In Ayrshire we come to know 
Burns as we cannot know him elsewhere ; we shake hands with 
him, as it were, and feel the spell of his sweet, strong person- 
ality as we wander with him in the fields and woods, by the 
Nith and the Doon, or as we sit with him at a rockin' amang 
the neebors dear, and listen to the meickle fun which precedes 
the " hearty yokin at sang about."' 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. XXV 

"The study of such a genius [says Principal Tulloch], in all the 
fulness of its development and surroundings, in all its significance, — 
personal, intellectual, historical, — is a study of wide and ennobling 
extent, and would be found to make something of a real education for 
any one undertaking it thoroughly." 

In an age of morbid introspection and analysis, 

" Of fevered fancyings and of fretful lays," 

these poems of Burns, with their simplicity and homely objec- 
tivity, their tender and pathetic heart logic, reveal to us " A joy 
in widest commonalty spread," in which young and old, rich 
and poor, alike may share ; they make the world a lovelier place, 
and life a diviner thing. 

If errors, textual, historical, or biographical, are found in this 
edition, the editor will be glad to have his attention called to 
them. 

A. J. G. 

Brooklinh, Mass. 
July 21, 1896. 



INTRODUCTION. 



" BuRNS's poems are but little rhymed fragments scattered here 
and there in the grand unrhymed romance of his earthly existence." 

Carlyle. 

"The songs of Burns appeal to all ranks, they touch all ages, they 

cheer toilworn men under every clime. Wherever the English tongue 

is heard, whenever men of British blood would give vent to their 

deepest, kindliest, most genial feelings, it is to the songs of Burns they 

spontaneously turn, and find in them at once a perfect utterance, and 

a fresh tie of brotherhood." 

J. C. Shairp. 

*'By the striking excellence of his own contributions, and by the 
exquisite tact with which he handled and improved traditional ma- 
terials. Burns gave to Scottish lyrical literature a position in the esti- 
mation of intelligent Europe similar to that which Shakespeare holds 

in the literature of the drama." 

John Stuart Blackie. 

"Yours is the talk of the byre and the plough-tail; yours is that 
large utterance of the early hinds. No poet since the Psalmist of 
Israel ever gave the world more assurance of a man." 

Andrew Lang. 

" To homely subjects Burns communicated the rich commentary of 

his nature; they were all steeped in Burns; and they interest us not in 

themselves, but because they have been passed through the spirit of so 

genuine and vigorous a man." 

Robert Louis Stevenson. 



XXV^lll lA^TRODUCTION. 

" Through busiest street and loneliest glen 
Are felt the flashes of his pen ; 
He rules mid winter snows, and where 

Bees fill their hives ; 
Deep in the general heart of man 

His power survives." 



Wordsworth. 

" In Burns's poems we apprehend is to be found a truer history 
than any anecdote can supply of the things which happened to him- 
self, and moreover of the most notable things which went on in Scot- 
land between 1759 and 1796." 

Charles Kingslev. 

"As Burns's poems grew and breathed into being, the veil of the 
unknown was lifted, and Lowland Scotland, sweet and cheerful, came 
to light as when the sun rises over an undiscovered land. Scotland 
was the first object of his love, but after Scotland, mankind." 

Mrs. Oliphant. 

" We shall never understand Burns aright if we do not grasp the 

fact that he was a ' folk-poet,' into whom the soul of a poet of all 

time and all space had entered." 

George Saintsburv. 

*' Every poet' who, like Burns, increases that larger tenderness of 
the heart, which not only loves men, but hates to give pain to the lower 
animals, is, so far at least, religious in his poetry. No poet ever more 
deeply felt the sorrows of created things than Burns." 

Stopford a. Brooke. 

" In Burns's poems is to be read clearly the lyric chronicle of all 
that went to make up the most moving tale of Robert Burns, which 
is surely to be read, if at all, only with sympathy and tears." 

Ernest Rhys. 
" He came when poets had forgot 
How rich and strange the human lot ; 
How warm the tints of life ; how hot 

Are Love and Hate; 
And what makes Truth divine, and what 
Makes manhood great." 

William Watson. 



INTRODUCTION. XX ix 

" In homely Scots vernacular we are told by an Ayrshire plough- 
man authentic tidings of living instincts, of spontaneous belief, which 
not all the philosophy in the brain of the intellectual can bani; a frorti 
the breast of the human being." 

Arthur Hugh Clough. 

" Give lettered pomp to teeth of time, 
So ' Bonnie Doon ' but tarry ; 
Blot out the epic's stately rhyme, 
But spare his Highland Mary." 



Whittier. 



" He spoke of Burns, — men rude and rough 
Pressed round to hear the praise of one 
Whose heart was made of manly, simple stuff 
As homespun as their own." 

Lowell. 

"Not Latimer, not Luther, struck more telling blows against false 
theology than did this brave singer. The Confession of Augsburg, the 
Declaration of Independence, The French Rights of Man are not more 
weighty documents in the history of freedom than the songs of Burns." 

Emerson. 

" Burns was altruistic because his songs were those of his people. 
In his notes amid the heather, Scotia's lowly, independent children 
found a voice. It was his own, and it was theirs; he looked out and 
not in, or, if in, upon himself as the symbol of his kind. Of all our 
poets, lyric idyllic, he is most truly nature's darling; his pictures were 
life, his voice was freedom, his heart was strength and tenderness." 

E. C. Stedman. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 

OF 

BURNS' POEMS. 

Published at Kilmarnock in 1786. 



The following trifles are not the production of a Poet, who, 
with all the advantages of learned art, and perhaps amid the 
elegancies and idleness of upper life, looks down for a rural 
theme, with an eye to Theocritus or Virgil. To the author of 
this, these and other celebrated names, their countrymen, are 
at least in their original language, a fountain sJiiit up and a 
book sealed. Unacquainted with the necessary rules for com- 
mencing poetry by rule, he sings the sentiments and manners 
he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers around him, 
in his and their native language. Though a rhymer from his 
earliest years, at least from the earliest impulses of the softer 
passions, it was not till very lately that the applause, perhaps 
the partiality of friendship, wakened his vanity so far as to make 
him think anything of his worth showing ; and none of the fol- 
lowing works were composed with a view to the press. 

To amuse himself with the little creations of his own fancy, 
amid the toil and fatigues of a laborious life ; to transcribe the 
various feelings, the loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears, in his 
own breast ; to find some kind of counterpoise to the struggles 
of a world, always an alien scene, a task uncouth to the poetical 
mind — these were his motives for courting the muses, and in 
these he found poetry to be its own reward. 

Now that he appears in the public character of an author, he 

xxxi 



XXX ii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

does it with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhym- 
ing tribe, that even he, obscure, nameless bard, shrinks aghast 
at the thought of being branded as an impertinent blockhead, 
obtruding his nonsense on the world ; and, because he can make 
a shift to jingle a few doggerel Scotch rhymes together, looking 
upon himself as a poet of no small consequence, forsooth ! 

It is an observation of that celebrated poet, Shenstone, whose 
divine elegies do honor to our language, our nation, and our 
species, that, '■'■ Humility has depressed many a genius to a 
hermit, but never raised one to fame ! '^ If our critic catches at 
the word ge?iius, the author tells him once for all, that he cer- 
tainly looks upon himself as possessed of some poetic abilities, 
otherwise his publishing in the manner he has done, would be a 
manoeuvre below the worst character, which, he hopes, his worst 
enemy will ever give him. But to the genius of a Ramsay, or 
the glorious dawnings of the poor, unfortunate Fergusson, he, 
with equal unaffected sincerity, declares, that even in his highest 
pulse of vanity, he has not the most distant pretension. These 
two justly admired Scotch poets he has often had in his eye in 
the following pieces ; but rather with a view to kindle at their 
flame, than for servile imitation. 

To his subscribers, the author returns his most sincere thanks. 
Not the mercenary bow over a counter, but the heart-throbbing 
gratitude of the Bard, conscious how much he owes to benevo- 
lence and friendship, for gratifying him, if he deserves it, in 
that dearest wish of every poetic bosom — to be distinguished. 
He begs his readers, particularly the learned and polite, who 
may honour him with a perusal, that they will make every allow- 
ance for education and circumstances of life ; but if, after a fair, 
candid, and impartial criticism he shall stand convicted of dul- 
ness and nonsense, let him be done by as he would in that case 
do by others — let him be condemned without mercy to contempt 
and oblivion. 



DEDICATION. 

{Second Edition, Edinbw gh, 17S7.) 



To THE Noblemen and Gentlemen of the Caledonian 
Hunt. 

My Lords and Gentle7ne}i : — 

A Scottish Bard, proud of name, and whose highest ambition 
is to sing in his country's service — where shall he so properly 
look for patronage as to the illustrious names of his native land ; 
those who bear the honors and inherit the virtues of their ances- 
tors? The Poetic Genius of my country found me, as the pro- 
phetic bard Elijah did Elisha — at the plough; and threw her 
inspiring mantle over me. She bade me sing the loves, the 
joys, the rural scenes, and rural pleasures of my native soil, in 
my native tongue; I tuned my wild, artless notes, as she in- 
spired. She whispered me to come to this ancient metropolis 
of Caledonia, and lay my songs under your honored protection ; 
I now obey her dictates. 

Though much indebted to your goodness, I do not approach 
you, my Lords and Gentlemen, in the usual style of dedica- 
tion, to thank you for past favours ; that path is so hackneyed 
by prostituted learning, that honest rusticity is ashamed of it. 
Nor do I present this address with the venal soul of a servile 
Author, looking for a continuation of these favours ; I was bred 
to the plough, and am independent. I come to claim the 
common Scottish name with you, my ilkistrious countrymen ; 
and to tell the world that I glory in the title. I come to con- 

xxxiii 



XXXIV DEDICATION OF THE SECOND EDITION. 

gratulate my country that the blood of her ancient heroes still 
runs uncontaminated ; and that from your courage, .knowledge, 
and public spirit, she may expect protection, wealth, and lib- 
erty. In the last place, I come to proffer my \varmest wishes to 
the Great Fountain of Honour, the Monarch of the Universe, 
for your welfare and happiness. 

When you go forth to waken the Echoes in the ancient and 
favourite amusement of your forefathers, may Pleasure ever be 
of your party; and may Social Joy await your return. When 
harassed in courts or camps with the jostlings of bad men and 
bad measures, may the honest consciousness of injured worth 
attend your return to your native seats ; and may domestic hap- 
piness, with a smiling welcome, meet you at your gates ! May 
corruption shrink at your kindling, indignant glance ; and may 
tyranny in the Ruler, and licentiousness in the People, equally 
iind you an inexorable foe ! 

I have the horiour to be, 
With the sincerest gratitude, and highest respect. 
My Lords and Gentlemen, 

Your most devoted humble servant, 

ROBERT BURNS. 

Edinburgh, ^/r// 4, 17S7. 



CONTENTS. 



DATE. PAGE. 

Editor's Preface v 

Introduction » xxvii 

Preface to the Kilmarnock Edition of Poems, 1786 . . . xxxi 

^,_A_^ Dedication of the Edinburgh Edition, 1787 xxxiii 

1773 Handsome Nell i 

1783 The Rigs o' Barley 2 

"""'"^ Now Westlin Winds 4 

My Nannie O 5 

Mary Morison 7 

Winter — a Dirge 8 

A Prayer under the Pressure of Violent Anguish .... 9 

The Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie 10 

Poor Mailie's Elegy 12 

1784 Green grow the Rashes 14 

Epistle to Davie 15 

Second Epistle to Davie 21 

Address to the Deil 23 

1785 Holy Willie's Prayer 28 

Address to the Unco Guid 32 

Man was made to Mourn 34 

Epistle to John Lapraik 38 

To William Simpson, Ochiltree 43 

To the Rev. John M'Math 47 

To James Smith 51 

See the Smoking Bowl before us 58 

Halloween 59 

xxxv 



XXXVl CONTENTS. 

DATE. PAGE. 

To a Mouse 68 

The Vision 70 

The Cotter's Saturday Night 81 

Death and Dr. Hornbook 89 

A Winter Night 94 

There was a Lad . 98 

1786 The Auld Farmer's New Year's Salutation to His Auld 

Mare Maggie 99 

A Bard's Epitaph 103 

The Twa' Dogs 105 

To a Mountain Daisy ., 113 

To a Louse 115 

Epistle to a Young Friend 117 

A Dream 121 

The Lament 126 

A Prayer — O Thou Dread Power 129 

Farewell to the Banks of Ayr 130 

Will Ye Go to the Indies, My Mary . . 131 

Prayer for Mary 132 

My Highland Lassie, O 133 

Lines on Meeting with Lord Daer 135 

The Lass o' Ballochmyle 136 

The Braes o' Ballochmyle 138 

1787 Address to Edinburgh 139 

Epigram at Roslin Inn 141 

Epistle to Mrs. Scott, Guidwife of W^auchope-House . . 142 

Come boat Me o'er to Charlie 144 

Inscription on the Tombstone Erected by Burns to the 

Memory of Fergu.sson 145 

To a Lady Who was Looking up the Text during Sermon . 146 

The Birks of Aberfeldy 146 

The Humble Petition of Bruar Water 147 

The Lovely Lass o' Inverness 151 

Castle Gordon 151 

A Rosebud by My Early Walk 153 



CONTENTS. XXXvii 

DATE. PAGE. 

Ely the was She 154 

Banks of Devon 155 

1788 I love My Jean 156 

O were I on Parnassus' Hill 156 

M'Pherson's Farewell 157 

Auld Lang Syne 159 

Up in the Morning Early . 160 

My Bonnie Mary 160 

1789 On seeing a Wounded Hare Limp by Me 161 

John Anderson 162 

The Happy Trio (O, Willie brew'd a Peck o' Maut) . . 163 

To Mary in Heaven 164 

My Heart's in the Highlands 165 

To Dr. Blacklock 166 

On the late Captain Grose's Peregrinations 168 

Tarn Glen 170 

1790 Tarn O'Shanter 172 

Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson 179 

Banks of Nith 183 

1 79 1 Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots 184 

Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn 186 

The Banks o' Doon 189 

Version printed in the Musical Museum 190 

Address to the Shade of Thomson 191 

Afton Water 192 

Ae Fond Kiss 193 

1792 The Deil's awa' wi' the Exciseman • . . 194 

Highland Mary 195 

Bessie and Her Spinnin-Wheel 196 

Bonnie Lesley 197 

Duncan Gray 198 

1793 Galla Water 200 

Wandering Willie 201 

Jessie 20I 

The Soger's Return 202 



XXXVIU CONTENTS. 

DATE. PAGE. 

Logan Braes 205 

There was a Lass 206 

Bannockburn 208 

Sonnet on Hearing a Thrush Sing 209 

Dainty Davie 210 

1794 A Vision (Lincluden Abbey) 211 

Hark, the Mavis! (Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes) . . 213 

A Red Red Rose 214 

My Chloris 215 

The Charming Month of May 216 

Lassie wi' the lint-white Locks 217 

Contented wi' little 218 

My Nannie's Awa' 219 

1795 For a' That and a' That 220 

The Dumfries Volunteers 221 

Address to the Woodlark 223 

Inscription ('Tis Friendship's Pledge) 224 

To Mr. Cunningham 225 

1796 Altho' Thou maun never be Mine 227 

O wert Thou in the Cauld Blast 228 

Poem on Pastoral Poetry 228 

Chronological 231 

Notes 233 

Burns in Other Tongues 355 

Rules for Pronouncing Scotch Words 355 

Glossary 357 

Ridex to First Lines 367 

References 369 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



1773- 1783. 

HANDSOME NELL. 

Tune — " / am a Man tinmarriedr 

O, ONCE I lovM a bonnie lass, 

Aye, and I love her still, 
And whilst that virtue warms my breast 

I'll love my handsome Nell. 

Fal lal de ral, &c. 

As bonnie lasses I hae seen, 

And mony full as braw, 
But for a modest gracefu' mien 

The like I never saw. 

A bonnie lass, I will confess 

Is pleasant to the e'e, 
But, without some better qualities 

She's no a lass for me. 

But Nelly's looks are blithe and sweet, 

And what is best of a'. 
Her reputation is complete, 

And fair without a flaw. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

She dresses aye sae clean and neat, 

Both decent and genteel : 
And then there's something in her gait 

Gars onie dress look weel. 

A gaudy dress and gentle air 
May slightly touch the heart, 

But it's innocence and modesty 
That polishes the dart. 

'Tis this in Nelly pleases me, 
'Tis this enchants my soul ! 

For absolutely in my breast 
She reigns without control. 

Fal lal de ral, &c. 



THE RIGS O' BARLEY. 

Tune — " Com rigs are bonnieP 

It was upon a Lammas night, 

When corn rigs are bonnie, 
Beneath the moon's unclouded light, 

I held awa to Annie : 
The time flew by, wi' tentless heed, 

Till 'tween the late and early, 
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed. 

To see me thro' the barley. 

The sky was blue, the wind was still. 
The moon was shining clearly ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

I set her down, wi' right good will, 
Amang the rigs o' barley ; 

I ken't her heart was a' my ain ; 
I lov'd her most sincerely; 

I kiss'd her owre and owre again 
Amang the rigs o' barley. 

I lock'd her in my fond embrace ; 

Her heart was beating rarely ; 
My blessings on that happy place, 

Amang the rigs o' barley ! 
But by the moon and stars so bright, 

That shone that hour so clearly ! 
She ay shall bless that happy night 

Amang the rigs o' barley. 

I hae been blythe wi' comrades dear ; 

I hae been merry drinking ; 
I hae been joyfu' gath'rin gear ; 

I hae been happy thinking: 
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw, 

Tho' three times doubl'd fairly, 
That happy night was worth them a', 

Amang the rigs o' barley. 

CHORUS. 

Corn rigs, an' barley rigs. 
An' corn rigs are bonnie : 

I'll ne'er forget that happy night, 
Amano; the rij^s wi' Annie. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURA^S. 



NOW WESTLIN WINDS. 

Tune — " / had a horse, I had nae tttair." 

Now westlin winds and slaught'ring guns 

Bring autumn's pleasant weather ; 
The moorcock springs, on whirring wings, 

Amang the blooming heather : 
Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain, 

Delights the weary farmer ; 
And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night 

To muse upon my charmer. 

The partridge loves the fruitful fells ; 

The plover loves the mountains ; 
The woodcock loves the lonely dells ; 

The soaring hern the fountains : 
Thro' lofty groves the cushat roves, 

The path of man to shun it ; 
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush, 

The spreading thorn the linnet. 

Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find. 

The savage and the tender ; 
Some social join, and leagues combine ; 

Some solitary wander : 
Avaunt, away, the cruel sway ! 

Tyrannic man's dominion ; 
The sportsman's joy, the murd'ring cry, 

The flutt'ring, gory pinion ! 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

But, Peggy dear, the ev'ning's clear, 

Thick flies the skimming swallow ; 
The sky is blue, the fields in view, 

All fading-green and yellow : 
Come let us stray our gladsome way, 

And view the charms of nature ; 
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn, 

And ev'ry happy creature. 

We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk, 

Till the silent moon shine clearly ; 
I'll grasp thy waist, and, fondly prest, 

Swear how I love thee dearly : 
Not vernal show'rs to budding flow'rs 

Not autumn to the farmer. 
So dear can be, as thou to me, 

My fair, my lovely charmer ! 



MY NANNIE, O. 

Behind yon hills where Lugar flows, 
'Mang moors an' mosses many, O, 

The wintry sun the.day has clos'd. 
And I'll awa' to Nannie, O. 

The westlin wind blaws loud an' shill ; 

The night's baith mirk and rainy, O 
But I'll get my plaid, an' out I'll steal, 

An' owre the hill to Nannie, O. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURA'S. 

My Nannie's charming, sweet, an' young ; 

Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O : 
May ill befa' the flattering tongue 

That wad beguile my Nannie, O. 

Her face is fair, her heart is true ; 

As spotless as she's bonnie, O : 
The op'ning gowan, wat wi' dew, 

Nae purer is than Nannie, O. 

A country lad is my degree, 

An' few there be that ken me, O ; 

But what care I how few they be, 
I'm welcome aye to Nannie, O. 

My riches a's my penny-fee. 

An' I maun guide it cannie, O ; 

But warl's gear ne'er troubles me. 
My thoughts are a', my Nannie, O. 

Our auld Guidman delights to view 
His sheep an' kye thrive bonnie, O ; 

But I'm as blythe that hands his pleugh, 
An' has nae care but Nannie, O. 

Come weel, come woe, I care na b}^, 
I'll tak what Heav'n will send me, O ; 

Nae ither care in life have I, 

But live, an' love my Nannie, O. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 
MARY MORISON. 

Tune — " Bide ye yet." 

Mary, at thy window be, 

It is the wish'd, the trysted hour ! 
Those smiles and glances let me see. 

That makes the miser's treasure poor 
How blythely wad I bide the stoure, 

A weary slave frae sun to sun ; 
Could I the rich reward secure, 

The lovely Mary Morison. 

Yestreen, when to the trembling string 
The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha'. 

To thee my fancy took its wing, 
I sat, but neither heard or saw : 

Tho' this was fair, and that was braw, 
And yon the toast of a' the town, 

1 sigh'd, and said amang them a', 

"Ye are nae Mary Morison." 

O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, 

Wha for thy sake wad gladly die ? 
Or canst thou break that heart of his, 

Whase only faut is loving thee ? 
If love for love thou wilt na gie. 

At least be pity to me shown ; 
A thought ungentle canna be 

The thought o' Mary Morison. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 
WINTER : 

A DIRGE. 

The wintry west extends his blast, 

And hail and rain does blaw ; 
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth 

The blinding sleet ai^d snaw : 
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down, 

And roars frae bank to brae ; 
And bird and beast in covert rest. 

And pass the heartless day. 

"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast," 

The joyless winter-day 
Let others fear, to me more dear 

Than all the pride of May : 
The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, 

My griefs it seems to join ; 
The leafless trees my fancy please, 

Their fate resembles mine ! 

Thou Pow'r Supreme, whose mighty scheme 

These woes of mine fulfil, 
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best. 

Because they are Thy will ! 
Then all I want, (Oh ! do thou grant 

This one request of mine !) 
Since to enjoy thou dost deny, 

Assist me to resign. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



A PRAYER, UNDER THE PRESSURE OF 
VIOLENT ANGUISH. 

O Thou great Being ! what Thou art 

Surpasses me to know ; 
Yet sure I am, that known to Thee 

Are all Thy works below. 

Thy creature here before Thee stands, 

All wretched and distrest ; 
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul 

Obey Thy high behest. 

Sure, Thou, Almighty, canst not act 

From cruelty or wrath ! 
O, free my weary eyes from tears, 

Or close them fast in death ! 

But if I must afflicted be, 

To suit some wise design ; 
Then, man my soul with firm resolves 

To bear and not repine ! 



lO SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



THE DEATH AND DYING WORDS OF POOR 
MAILIE, THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE. 

AN UNCO MOURNFU' TALE. 

As Mailie, an' her lambs thegither, 
Was ae day nibbling on the tether, 
Upon her cloot she coost a hitch, 
An' owre she warsl'd in the ditch ; 
There, groaning, dying, slie did He, 
When Hughoc he cam doytin by. 

Wi' glowrin een, an' lifted ban's, 
Poor Hughoc like a statue stan's ; 
He saw her days were near-hand ended. 
But, waes my heart ! he could na mend it ! 
He gaped wide, but naething spak. 
At length poor Mailie silence brak. 

O thou, whase lamentable face 
Appears to mourn my woefu' case ! 
My dying words attentive hear, 
An' bear them to my Master dear. 

Tell him, if e'er again he keep 
As muckle gear as buy a sheep, 
O, bid him never tie them mair 
Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair ! 
But ca' them out to park or hill, 
An' let them wander at their will ; 
So may his flock increase, an' grow 
To scores o' lambs, an' packs o' woo' ! 

Tell him, he was a Master kin', 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. II 

An' ay was guid to me an' mine ; 
An' now my dying charge I gie him, 
My helpless lambs, I trust them wi' him. 

O, bid him save their harmless lives, 
Frae dogs, an' tods, an' butchers' knives ! 
But gie them guid cow-milk their fill, 
Till they be fit to fend themsel : 
An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn, 
Wi' teats o' hay an' ripps o' corn. 

An' may they never learn the gaets 
Of ither vile wanrestfu' pets ! 
To slink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal, 
At stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail. 
So may they, like their great Forbears, 
For monie a year come thro' the sheers; 
So wives will gie them bits o' bread, 
An' bairns greet for them when they're dead. 

My poor toop-lamb, my son an' heir, 
O, bid him breed him up wi' care ! 
An', if he live to be a beast. 
To pit some havins in his breast ! 
An' warn him, what I winna name. 
To stay content wi' yowes at hame ; 
An' no to rin an' wear his cloots, 
Like ither menseless, graceless brutes. 

An' niest my yowie, silly thing, 
Gude keep thee frae a tether string ! 
O, may thou ne'er forgather up 
Wi' ony blastlt, moorland toop ; 
But ay keep mind to moop an' mell, 
Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel ! 



12 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath 
I lea'e my blessin wi' you baith : 
An' when you think upo' your Mither, 
Mind to be kind to ane anither. 

Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail, 
To tell my Master a' my tale ; 
An' bid him burn this cursed tether. 
An', for thy pains, thou'se get my blether. 

This said, poor Mailie turn'd her head, 
An' clos'd her een amang the dead ! 



POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY. 

Lament in rhyme, lament in prose, 

Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose ; 

Our Bardie's fate is at a close, 

Past a' remead ; 
The last, sad cape-stane of his woes; 

Poor Mailie's dead! 

It's no the loss o' warl's gear. 
That could sae bitter draw the tear, 
Or mak our Bardie, dowie, wear 

The mourning weed : 
He's lost a friend and neebor dear, 

In Mailie dead. 

Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him ; 
A lang half-mile she could descry him ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 3 

Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, 

She ran wi' speed : 
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him, 

Than Mailie dead. 

I wat she was a sheep o' sense. 
An' could behave hersel wi' mense ; 
I'll say't, she never brak a fence, 

Thro' thievish greed. 
Our Bardie, lanely, keeps the spence 

Sin' Mailie's dead. 

Or, if he wanders up the howe. 

Her living image in her yowe 

Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe. 

For bits o' bread ; 
An' down the briny pearls rowe 

For Mailie dead. 

She was nae get o' moorland tips, 

Wi' tawted ket, an' hairy hips ; 

For her forbears were brought in ships, 

Frae yont the Tweed : 
A bonnier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips 

Than Mailie's dead. 

Wa worth the man wha first did shape 
That vile, wanchancie thing — a rape ! 
It maks guid fellows grin an' gape, 

Wi' chokin dread; 
An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape. 

For Mailie dead. 



14 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

O, a' ye Bards on bonnie Doon ! 
An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune ! 
Come, join the melanchoUous croon 

O' Robin's reed 1 
His heart will never get aboon ! 

His Mailie's dead ! 



1784. • 
GREEN GROW THE RASHES. 

A FRAGMENT. 
CHORUS. 

Green grow the rashes, O ; 

Green grow the rashes, O ; 
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend, 

Are spent amang the lasses, O ! 

There's nought but care on ev'ry han', 
In ev'ry hour that passes, O ; 

What signifies the life o' man, 
An' 'twere na for the lasses, O. 
Green grow, &c. 

The war'ly race may riches chase, 
An' riches still may fly them, O ; 

An' tho' at last they catch them fast, 
Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O, 
Green grow, &c. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I 5 

But gie me a canny hour at e'en, 

My arms about my dearie, O ; 
An' war'ly cares, an' war'ly men, 

May a' gae tapsalteerie, O ! 
Green grow, &c. 

For you sae douce, ye sneer at this, 
Ye're nought but senseless asses, O : 

The wisest man the warl' saw, 
^e dearly lov'd the lasses, O. 
Green grow, &c. 

Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears 

Her noblest work she classes, O ; 
Her prentice han' she tried on man. 

An' then she made the lasses, O. 
Green grow, &c. 



EPISTLE TO DAVIE, A BROTHER POET. 

January — [1784]. 

While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw. 
And bar the doors wi' drivin' snaw. 

And hing us owre the ingle, 
I set me down, to pass the time. 
And spin a verse or twa o' rhyme, 

In hamely, westlin jingle : 
While frosty winds blaw in the drift, 

Ben to the chimla lug. 



l6 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

I grudge a wee the Great-folk's gift, 
That live sae bien an snug : 
I tent less, and want less 
Their roomy fire-side ; 
But hanker and canker, 
To see their cursed pride. 



i 



It's hardly in a body's pow'r. 

To keep, at times, frae being sour, 

To see how things are shar'd ; 
How best o' chiels are whyles in want. 
While coofs on countless thousands rant, 

And ken na how to wair't : 
But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head, 

Tho' we hae little gear, 
We're fit to win our daily bread, 
As lang's we're hale and fier : 
" Mair spier na, nor fear na," 
Auld age ne'er mind a feg ; 
The last o't, the warst o't. 
Is only but to beg. 

To lie in kilns and barns at e'en. 

When banes are craz'd, and bluid is thin. 

Is, doubtless, great distress ! 
Yet then content would mak us blest ; 
Ev'n then, sometimes, we'd snatch a taste 

Of truest happiness. 
The honest heart that's free frae a' 

Intended fraud or s^uile. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 7 

However fortune kick the ba', 
Has ay some cause to smile : 
And mind still, you'll find still, 

A comfort this nae sma' ; 
Nae mair then, we'll care then, 
Nae farther can we fa'. 



What tho', like commoners of air, 
We wander out, we know not where, 

But either house or hal' ? 
Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods. 
The sweeping vales, and foaming floods, 

Are free alike to all. 
In days when daisies deck the ground. 

And blackbirds whistle clear. 
With honest joy our hearts will bound. 
To see the coming year : 

On braes when we please, then, 

We'll sit and sowth a tune ; 
Syne rhyme till't, we'll time till't. 
And sing't when we hae done. 

It's no in titles nor in rank ; 

It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank, 

To purchase peace and rest ; 
It's no in making muckle, 7nair : 
It's no in books, it's no in lear, 

To make us truly blest : 
If happiness hae not her seat 

And centre in the breast. 



1 8 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

We may be wise, or rich, or great, 
But never can be blest : 

Nae treasures, nor pleasures, 

Could make us happy lang ; 
The heart ay's the part ay. 
That makes us right or wrang. 

Think ye, that sic as you and I, 

Wha drudge and drive thro' wet an' dry, 

Wi' never ceasing toil ; 
Think ye, are we less blest than they, 
Wha scarcely tent us in their way, 

As hardly worth their while ? 
Alas ! how aft in haughty mood, 
God's creatures they oppress ! 
Or else, neglecting a' that's guid. 
They riot in excess ! 

Baith careless, and fearless, 

Of either heav'n or hell ! 
Esteeming, and deeming 
It's a' an idle tale ! 

Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce ; 
Nor make our scanty pleasures less, 

By pining at our state ; 
And, even should misfortunes come, 
I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some, 

An's thankfu' for them yet. 
They gie the wit of age to youth ; 

They let us ken oursel ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 9 

They mak us see the naked truth, 
The real guid and ill. 
Tho' losses, and crosses. 

Be lessons right severe, 
There's wit there, ye'll get there, 
Ye'U find nae other where. 



But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts ! 

(To say aught less wad wrang the cartes, 

And flatt'ry I detest) 
This life has joys for you and I ; 
And joys that riches ne'er could buy - 

And joys the very best. 
There's a' the pleasures o' the heart, 

The lover an' the frien' ; 
Ye hae your Meg, your dearest part, 
And I my darling Jean ! 
It warms me, it charms me. 

To mention but her name : 
It heats me, it beets me. 
And sets me a' on flame ! 

O all ye pow'rs who rule above ! 
O Thou, whose very self art love ! 

Thou know'st my words sincere ! 
The life-blood streaming thro' my heart. 
Or my own dear immortal part, 

Is not more fondly dear ! 
When heart-corroding care and grief 

Deprive my soul of rest. 



20 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Her dear idea brings relief 
And solace to my breast. 
Thou Being, All-seeing, 

O hear my fervent pray'r ; 
Still take her, and make her 
Thy most peculiar care ! 

All hail, ye tender feelings dear ! 
The smile of love, the friendly tear, 

The sympathetic glow ! 
Long since, this world's thorny ways 
Had number'd out my weary days, 

Had it not been for you ! 
Fate stili has blest me with a friend, 

In every care and ill ; 
And oft a more endearing band, 
A tie more tender still. 
It lightens, it brightens 
The tenebrific scene, 
To meet with, and greet with 
My Davie or my Jean. 

O, how that name inspires my style ! 
The words come skelpin, rank and file, 

Amaist before I ken ! 
The ready measure rins as fine. 
As Phoebus and the famous Nine 

Were glowrin owre my pen. 
My spaviet Pegasus will limp, 

Till ance he's fairly het ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 21 

And then he'll hilch, and stilt, and jimp, 
An rin an unco fit : 

But lest then, the beast then, 
Should rue his hasty ride, 
I'll light now, and dight now 
His sweaty, wizen'd hide. 



SECOND EPISTLE TO DAVIE, A BROTHER 

POET. 

AULD NEEBOR, 

I'm three times doubly o'er your debtor, 
For your auld-farrant, fren'ly letter ; 
Tho' I maun say't, I doubt ye flatter, 

Ye speak sae fair. 
For my puir, silly, rhymin clatter 

Some less maun sair. 

Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle ; 
Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle, 
To cheer you through the weary widdle 

O' war'ly cares, 
Till bairns' bairns kindly cuddle 

Your auld gray hairs. 

But Davie, lad, I'm red ye're glaikit ; 
I'm tauld the Muse ye hae negleckit ; 



22 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

And gif it's sae, ye sud be licket 

Until ye fyke ; 
Sic hauns as you sud ne'er be faikit, 

Be hain't wha like. 

For me, I'm on Parnassus' brink, 

Rivin' the words to gar them clink ; 

Whyles daez't wi' love, whyles daez't wi' drink, 

Wi' jads or masons ; 
An' whyles, but aye owre late, I think, 

Braw sober lessons. 

Of a' the thoughtless sons o' man, 
Commend me to the Bardie clan; 
Except it be some idle plan 

O' rhymin clink. 
The devil-haet, that I sud ban. 

They ever think. 

Nae thought, nae view, nae scheme o' livin', 
Nae cares to gie us joy or grievin' ; 
But just the pouchie put the nieve in. 

An' while ought's there, 
Then hiltie skiltie, we gae scrievin'. 

An' fash nair main 

Leeze me on rhyme ! it's aye a treasure. 
My chief, amaist my only pleasure. 
At hame, a-fiel', at wark or leisure, 

The Muse, poor hizzie ! 
Tho' rough an' raploch be her measure. 

She's seldom lazy. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 23 

Haud to the Muse, my dainty Davie ; 
The warl' may play you monie a shavie ; 
But for the Muse, she'll never leave ye, 

Tho' e'er sae puir, 
Na, even tho' limpin' wi' the spavie 

Frae door tae door. 



ADDRESS TO THE DEIL. 

O Prince ! O Chief of many throned powrs, 
That led th^ embattled Seraphiju to -war — 

Milton. 

O THOU ! whatever title suit thee, 
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie, 
Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie, 

Clos'd under hatches, 
Spairges about the brunstane cootie. 

To scaud poor wretches ! 

Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee. 
An' let poor damned bodies be ; 
I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie, 

Ev'n to a deil, 
To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me, 

An' hear us squeel ! 

Great is thy pow'r, an' great thy fame ; 
Far kend an' noted is thy name ; 



24 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

An' tho' yon lowin heugh's thy hame, 

Thou travels far ; 
An' faith ! thou's neither lag nor lame, 

Nor blate nor scaur. 

Whyles, ranging like a roarin lion 
For prey, a' holes an' corners tryin ; 
Whyles on the strong-wing'd Tempest flyin, 

Tirlin the kirks ; 
Whyles, in the human bosom pryin, 

Unseen thou lurks. 

I've heard my reverend Grannie say, 
In lanely glens ye like to stray ; 
Or where auld, ruin'd castles, gray, 

Nod to the moon. 
Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way, 

Wi' eldritch croon. 

When twilight did my Grannie summon, 
To say her pray'rs, douce, honest woman ! 
Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin, 

Wi' eerie drone ; 
Or, rustlin, thro' the boortrees comin, 

Wi' heavy groan. 

Ae dreary, windy, winter night. 

The stars shot down wi' sklentin light, 

Wi' you, mysel, I gat a fright, 

Ayont the lough ; 
Ye, like a rash-buss, stood in sight, 

Wi' wavin' sugh. 



SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 25 

The cudgel in my nieve did shake, 
Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake, 
When wi' an eldritch, stoor quaick, quaick, 

Amang the springs, 
Awa ye squatter'd like a drake. 

On whistling wings. 

Let warlocks grim, an' wither'd hags, 
Tell how wi' you on ragweed nags. 
They skim the muirs, an' dizzy crags, 

Wi' wicked speed ; 
And in kirk-yards renew their leagues, 

Owre howkit dead. 

Thence, contra wives, wi' toil an' pain, 
May plunge an' plunge the kirn in vain ; 
For, oh ! the yellow treasure's taen 

By witching skill ; 
An' dawtit, twal-pint Hawkie's gaen 

As yell's the Bill. 

Thence, mystic knots mak great abuse. 
On young Guidmen, fond, keen, an crouse ; 
When the best wark-lume i' the house, 

By cantrip wit. 
Is instant made no worth a louse, 

Just at the bit. 

When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord, 
An' float the jinglin icy-boord. 



26 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

Then, Water-kelpies haunt the foord, 
By your direction, 

An' nighted Trav'llers are allur'd 
To their destruction. 

An' aft your moss-traversing Spunkies 
Decoy the wight that late an' drunk is : 
The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkies 

Delude his eyes. 
Till in some miry slough he sunk is, 

Ne'er mair to rise. 

When Masons' mystic word an' grip. 
In storms an' tempests raise you up. 
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop, 

Or, strange to tell ! 
The youngest Brother ye wad whip 

Aff straught to hell. 

Lang syne, in Eden's bonnie yard. 
When youthfu' lovers first were pair'd, 
An' all the soul of love they shar'd, 

The raptur'd hour. 
Sweet on the fragrant, flow'ry swaird, 

In shady bow'r : 

Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog 

Ye came to Paradise incog. 

An' play'd on man a cursed brogue, 

(Black be you fa !) 
An' gied the infant warld a shog, 

'Maist ruin'd a'. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 2/ 

D'ye mind that day, when in a bizz, 
Wi' reckit duds, an' reestit gizz. 
Ye did present your smoutie phiz, 

'Mang better folk, 
An' sklented on the man of Uzz 

Your spitefu' joke ! 

An' how ye gat him i' your thrall, 
An' brak him out o' house an' hall, 
While scabs an' blotches did him gall, 

Wi' bitter claw, 
An' lows'd his ill-tongu'd, wicked Scawl, 

Was warst ava ? 

But a' your doings to rehearse, 
Your wily snares an' fetchin fierce. 
Sin' that day Michael did you pierce, 

Down to this time. 
Wad ding a' Lallan tongue, or Erse, 

In prose or rhyme. 

An' now, auld Cloots, I ken ye're thinkin, 
A certain Bardie's rantin, drinkin. 
Some luckless hour will send him linkin. 

To your black pit ; 
But, faith ! he'll turn a corner jinkin, 

An' cheat you yet. 

But, fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben ! 
O wad ye tak a thought an' men' ! 



28 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Ye aiblins might — I dinna ken — 
Still hae a stake — 

I'm wae to think upo' yon den, 

Ev'n for your sake ! 



1785- 
HOLY WILLIE'S PRAYER. 

Thou, wha in the Heavens dost dwell, 
Wha, as it pleases best thysel', 

Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell, 

A' for thy glory, 
And no for onie guid or ill 

They've done afore thee ! 

1 bless and praise thy matchless might, 
Whan thousands thou hast left in night. 
That I am here afore thy sight. 

For gifts an' grace, 
A burnin' an' a shinin' light, 
To a' this place. 

What was I, or my generation, 
That I should get sic exaltation ? 
I, wha deserve sic just damnation. 

For broken laws, 
Five thousand years 'fore my creation, 

Thro' Adam's cause. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 29 

When frae my mither's womb I fell, 
Thou might hae plunged me in hell, 
To gnash my gums, to weep and wail, 

In burnin' lake, 
Where damned devils roar and yell, 

Chain'd to a stake. 

Yet I am here a chosen sample, 

To show thy grace is great and ample ; 

I'm here a pillar in thy temple, 

Strong as a rock, 
A guide, a buckler, an example 

To a' thy flock. 

O Lord, thou kens what zeal I bear. 
When drinkers drink, an' swearers swear, 
And singin' there and dancin' here, 

Wi' great an' sma'; 
For I am keepit by thy fear, 

Free frae them a'. 

But yet, O Lord ! confess I must. 
At times I'm fash'd wi' fleshly lust. 
An' sometimes too, wi' warldly trust. 

Vile self gets in ; 
But thou remembers we are dust, 

Defil'd in sin. 

May be thou lets this fleshly thorn 
Beset thy servant e'en and morn, 



;0 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 



Lest he ovvre high and proud should turn, 
'Cause he's sae gifted ; 

If sae, thy hand maun e'en be borne, 
Until thou lift it. 



Lord, bless thy chosen in this place, 
For here thou hast a chosen race ; 
But God confound their stubborn face, 

And blast their name, 
Wha bring thy elders to disgrace, 

An' public shame. 

Lord, mind Gaw'n Hamilton's deserts. 
He drinks an' swears, an' plays at cartes. 
Yet has sae monie takin arts, 

Wi' grit an' sma', 
Frae God's ain priest the people's hearts 

He steals awa'. 

An' whan we chasten'd him therefore. 
Thou kens how he bred sic a splore. 
As set the warld in a roar 

O' laughin' at us ; 
Curse thou his basket and his store, 

Kail and potatoes. 

Lord, hear my earnest cry an' pray'r. 
Against that presbyt'ry o' Ayr; 
Thy strong right hand, Lord, make it bare 
Upo' their heads ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 3 I 

Lord, visit them, and dinna spare. 
For their misdeeds. 

O Lord, my God ! that glib-tongued Aiken, 
My vera heart and saul are quakin'. 
To think how we stood sweatin', shakin' 

An' fill'd wi' dread, 
While he wi' hingin' lip an' snakin' 

Held up his head. 

Lord, in the day o' vengeance try him ; 
Lord, visit them wha did employ him, 
And pass not in thy mercy by 'em, 

Nor hear their pray'r ; 
But for thy people's sake, destroy 'em 

An' dinna spare. 

But, Lord, remember me an' mine 
Wi' mercies temp'ral an' divine, 
That I for grace and gear may shine, 

Excell'd by nane, 
An' a' the glory shall be thine. 

Amen, Amen ! 



32 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 



ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID, OR 
THE RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS. 

My son, these maxims make a rule. 

And Itwip them aye thegither ; 
The Rigid Righteous is a fool, 

The Rigid Wise anither : 
The cleajtest corn that e'er was dight. 

May hae some pyles <?' caff iti ; 
So ne'er a fellow-creature slight 

For random fits o' daffin. 

Solomon, — Eccles. vii. i6. 

O YE wha are sae guid yoursel, 

Sae pious and sae holy, 
Ye've nought to do but mark and tell 

Your Neebour's fauts and folly ! 
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, 

Supply'd wi' store o' water, 
The heapet happer's ebbing still, 

And still the clap plays clatter. 

Hear me, ye venerable Core, 

As counsel for poor mortals. 
That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door. 

For glaikit Folly's portals ; 
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes, 

Would here propone defences, 
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes, 

Their failings and mischances. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 33 

Ye see your state \vi' theirs compar'd, 

And shudder at the niffer, 
But cast a moment's fair regard, 

What maks the mighty differ ; 
Discount what scant occasion gave 

That purity ye pride in, 
And (what's aft mair than a' the lave) 

Your better art o' hidin'. 

Think, when your castigated pulse 

Gies now and then a wallop, 
What raging must his veins convulse, 

That still eternal gallop ! 
Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail, 

Right on ye scud your sea-way ; 
But in the teeth o' baith to sail. 

It makes an unco leeway. 

See Social life and Glee sit down, 

All joyous and unthinking, 
Till, quite transmugrify'd, they're grown 

Debauchery and Drinking : 
O would they stay to calculate 

Th' eternal consequences ; 
Or your more dreaded hell to state. 

Damnation of expenses ! 

Ye high, exalted, virtuous Dames, 

Ty'd up in godly laces. 
Before you gie poor Frailly names, 

Suppose a change o'*cases; 



34 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

A dear-lov'd lad, convenience snug, 
A treach'rous inclination — 

But, let me whisper i' your lug, 
Ye're aiblins nae temptation. 

Then gently scan your brother Man, 

Still gentler sister Woman ; 
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang, 

To step aside is human : 
One point must still be greatly dark, 

The moving Why they do it ; 
And just as lamely can ye mark, 

How far perhaps they rue it. 

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 

Decidedly can try us, 
He knows each chord, its various tone, 

Each spring, its various bias : 
Then at the balance let's be mute, 

We never can adjust it; 
What's done we partly may compute, 

But know not what's resisted. 



MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN. 

A DIRGE. 

When chill November's surly blast 
Made fields and forests bare. 

One ev'ning as I wander'd forth 
Along the banks of Ayr, 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 35 

I spy'd a man, whose aged step 

Seem'd weary, worn with care ; 
His face was furrow'd o'er with years, 

And hoary was his hair. 

" Young stranger, whither wand'rest thou ? " 

Began the rev'rend Sage ; 
" Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, 

Or youthful pleasure's rage ? 
Or, haply, prest with cares and woes. 

Too soon thou hast began 
To wander forth, with me, to mourn 

The miseries of Man. 

The sun that overhangs yon moors, 

Out-spreading far and wide. 
Where hundreds labour to support 

A haughty lordling's pride ; 
I've seen yon weary winter-sun 

Twice forty times return ; 
And ev'ry thne has added proofs, 

That Man was made to mourn. 

O man ! while in thy early years, 

How prodigal of time ! 
Mis-spending all thy precious hours. 

Thy glorious youthful prime ! 
Alternate follies take the sway; 

Licentious passions burn ; 
Which tenfold force give nature's law, 

That Man was made to mourn. 



36 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Look not alone on youthful prime, 

Or manhood's active might ; 
Man then is useful to his kind, 

Supported in his right, 
But see him on the edge of life. 

With cares and sorrows worn, 
Then age and want, Oh ! ill-match'd pair ! 

Show Man was made to mourn. 

A few seem favourites of fate. 

In pleasure's lap carest; 
Yet, think not all the rich and great 

Are likewise truly blest. 
But, Oh ! what crowds in ev'ry land 

Are wretched and forlorn ; 
Thro' weary life this lesson learn, 

That Man was made to mourn. 

Many and sharp the num'rous ills 

Inwoven with our frame ! 
More pointed still we make ourselves. 

Regret, remorse, and shame ! 
And man, whose heaven-erected face 

The smiles of love adorn, 
Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn ! 

See yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight, 

So abject, mean, and vile. 
Who begs a brother of the earth 

To give him leave to toil ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 37 

And see his lordly fellow-worm 

The poor petition spurn, 
Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife 

And helpless offspring mourn. 

If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave, 

By nature's law design'd, 
Why was an independent wish 

E'er planted in my mind ? 
If not, why am I subject to 

His cruelty, or scorn ? 
Or why has man the will and pow'r 

To make his fellow mourn ? 

Yet, let not this too much, my son, 

Disturb thy youthful breast ; 
This partial view of human-kind 

Is surely not the last ! 
The poor, oppressed, honest man, 

Had never, sure, been born, 
Had there not been some recompense 

To comfort those that mourn ! 

O Death ! the poor man's dearest friend, 

The kindest and the best ! 
Welcome the hour my aged limbs 

Are laid with thee at rest ! 
The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow, 

From pomp and pleasures torn ; 
But, Oh ! a blest relief to those 

That weary-laden mourn ! " 



3S SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



EPISTLE TO JOHN LAPRAIK, AN OLD 
SCOTTISH BARD. 

April I, 17S5. 

While briers an' woodbines budding green, 
An' paitricks scraichin loud at e'en, 
An' morning poussie whiddin seen, 

Inspire my Muse, 
This freedom, in an unknown frien', 

I pray excuse. 

On Fasten-e'en we had a rockin, 

To ca' the crack and weave our stock in ; 

And there was muckle fun and jokin, 

Ye need na doubt ; 
At length we had a hearty yokin 

At ' sang about.' 

There was ae sang, amang the rest, 
Aboon them a' it pleas'd me best. 
That some kind husband had addrest 

To some sweet wife ; 
It thirl'd the heart-strings thro' the breast, 

A' to the life. 

I've scarce heard ought describ'd sae weel. 
What gen'rous, manly bosoms feel ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 39 

Thought I, " Can this be Pope, or Steele, 

Or Seattle's wark ! " 
They told me 'twas an odd kind chiel 

About Muirkirk. 

It pat me fidgin-fain to hear't, 
And sae about him there I spier't ; 
Then a' that ken'd him round declar'd 

He had ingine. 
That name excell'd it, few cam near't, 

It was sae fine. 

That, set him to a pint of ale, 

An' either douce or merry tale. 

Or rhymes an' sangs he'd made himsel. 

Or witty catches, 
Tween Inverness and Tiviotdale, 

He had few matches. 

Then up I gat, an' swoor an aith, 

Tho' I should pawn my pleugh and graith. 

Or die a cadger pownie's death. 

At some dyke-back, 
A pint an' gill I'd gie them baith 

To hear your crack. 

But, first an' foremost, I should tell, 
Amaist as soon as I could spell, 
I to the crambo-jingle fell, 

Tho' rude an' rough, 
Yet crooning to a body's sel, 

Does weel enough. 



40 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

I am nae Poet, in a sense, 

But just a Rhymer, like, by chance, 

An' hae to learning nae pretence, 

Yet, what the matter ? 
Whene'er my Muse does on me glance, 

I jingle at her. 

Your critic-folk may cock their nose. 
And say, " How can you e'er propose. 
You wha ken hardly verse frae prose, 

To mak a sang ? " 
But, by your leaves, my learned foes. 

Ye 're maybe wrang. 



What's a' your jargon o' your schools, 
Your Latin names for horns an' stools; 
If honest nature made you fools, 

What sairs your grammars 
Ye'd better ta'en up spades and shools, 

Or knappin-hammers. 



A set o' dull, conceited hashes. 
Confuse their brains in college classes ! 
They gang in stirks, and come out asses, 

Plain truth to speak ; 
An' syne they think to climb Parnassus 

By dint o' Greek ! 



Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire. 
That's a' the learning I desire ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 4 1 

Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire 

At pleugh or cart, 
My Muse, though haniely in attire. 

May touch the heart. 

for a spunk O Allan's glee. 

Or Ferguson's, the bauld an' slee. 
Or bright Lapraik's, my friend to be, 

If I can hit it ! 
That would be lear eneugh for me. 

If I could get it. 

Now, Sir, if ye hae friends enow, 
Tho' real friends, I b'lieve, are few. 
Yet, if your catalogue be fou, 

I'se no insist. 
But gif ye want ae friend that's true, 

I'm on your list. 

1 winna blaw about mysel. 
As ill I like my fauts to tell ; 

But friends, an' folks that wish me well. 
They sometimes roose me ; 

Tho' I maun own, as monie still 
As far abuse me. 

There's ae wee faut they whyles lay to me, 
I like the lasses — Gude forgie me ! 
For monie a plack they wheedle frae me. 

At dance or fair ; 
Maybe some ither thing they gie me 

They weel can spare. 



42 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

But Mauchline race, or Mauchline fair, 
I should be proud to meet you there ; 
We'se gie ae night's discharge to care. 

If we forgather, 
An' hae a swap o' rhymin-ware 

Wi' ane anither. 



The four-gill chap, we'se gar him clatter. 
An' kirsen him wi' reekin water ; 
Syne we'll sit down an' tak our whitter. 

To cheer our heart ; 
An' faith, we'se be acquainted better 

Before we part. 

Awa, ye selfish, warly race, 

Wha think that havins, sense, an' grace, 

Ev'n love an' friendship, should give place 

To catch-the-plack ! 
I dinna like to see your face, 

Nor hear your crack. 

But ye whom social pleasure charms, 
Whose hearts the tide of kindness warms. 
Who hold your being on the terms, 

" Each aid the others," 
Come to my bowl, come to my arms, 

My friends, my brothers ! 

But to conclude my lang epistle, 

As my auld pen's worn to the grissle ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 43 

Twa lines frae you wad gar me fissle, 

Who am, most fervent, 
While I can either sing, or whissle, 

Your friend and servant. 



TO WILLIAM SIMPSON, 

OCHIL TREE. 

I GAT your letter, winsome Willie ; 
Wi' gratefu' heart I thank you brawlie ; 
Tho' I maun say't, I wad be silly, 

An' unco vain, 
Should I believe, my coaxin billie. 

Your fiatterin strain. 



But I'se believe ye kindly meant it, 
I sud be laitli to think ye hinted 
Ironic satire, sidelins sklented 

On my poor Musie ; 
Tho' in sic phrasin terms ye've penn'd it, 

I scarce excuse ye. 

My senses wad be in a creel, 
Should I but dare a hope to speel, 
Wi' Allan, or wi' Gilbertfield, 

The braes o' fame; 
Or Ferguson, the writer-chiel, 

A deathless name. 



May, 1785. 



44 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

(O Ferguson ! thy glorious parts 

111 suited law's dry, musty arts ! 

My curse upon your whunstane hearts 

Ye Enbrugh Gentry ! 
The tythe o' what ye waste at cartes 

Wad stow'd his pantry !) 

Yet when a tale comes i' my head, 

Or lasses gie my heart a screed, 

As whiles they're like to be my dead, 

(O sad disease !) 
I kittle up my rustic reed ; 

It gies me ease. 

Auld Coila, now, may fidge fu' fain, 
She's gotten bardies o' her ain, 
Chiels wha their chanters winna hain, 

But tune their lays, 
Till echoes a' resound again 

Her weel-sung praise. 

Nae Poet thought her worth his while, 
To set her name in measur'd style ; 
She lay like some unkend-of isle. 

Beside New Holland, 
Or where wild-meeting oceans boil 

Besouth Magellan. 

Ramsay an' famous Ferguson 
Gied Forth an' Tay a lift aboon ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 45 

Yarrow an' Tweed, to mony a tune, 

Owre Scotland's rings, 
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an' Doon, 

Naebody sings. 

Th' Ilissus, Tiber, Thames, an' Seine, 
Glide sweet in mony a tunefu' line ! 
But, Willie, set your lit to mine. 

An' cock your crest. 
We'll gar our streams an' burnies shine 

Up wi' the best. 

We'll sing auld Coila's plains an' fells. 
Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells. 
Her banks an' braes, her dens an' dells, 

Where glorious Wallace 
Aft bure the gree, as story tells, 

Frae Southron billies. 

At Wallace' name, what Scottish blood 
But boils up in a spring-tide flood ! 
Oft have our feerless fathers strode 

By Wallace' side. 
Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod, 

Or glorious dy'd. 

O, sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods, 
When lintwhites chant amang the buds. 
And jinkin hares, in amorous whids. 
Their loves enjoy, 



46 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

While thro' the braes the cushat croods 
Wi' wailfu' cry ! 

Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me 
When winds rave thro' the naked tree, 
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree 

Are hoary gray ; 
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee, 

Dark'ning the day ! 

O Nature ! a' thy shews an' forms 

To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms ! 

Whether the summer kindly warms, 

Wi' life an' light. 
Or winter howls, in gusty storms. 

The lang, dark night ! 

The muse, na Poet ever fand her, 
Till by himsel he learn'd to wander, 
Adown some trottin burn's meander. 

An' no think lang ; 
O sweet, to stray an' pensive ponder 

A heart-felt sang ! 

• 

The warly race may drudge an' drive, 
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an' strive. 
Let me fair Nature's face descrive. 

And I, wi' pleasure. 
Shall let the busy, grumbling hive 

Bum owre their treasure. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 47 

Fareweel, " my rhyme-composing brither ! " 
We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither : 
Now let us lay our heads thegither, 

In love fraternal : 
May Envy wallop in a tether, 

Black fiend, infernal ! 

While Highlandmen hate tolls an' taxes ; 
While moorlan' herds like guid, fat braxies ; 
While Terra Firma, on her axis. 

Diurnal turns, 
Count on a friend, in faith and practice. 

In Robert Burns. 



TO THE REV. JOHN M'MATH, 

ENCLOSING A COPY OF HOLY WILLIE'S PRAYER, 
WHICH HE HAD REQUESTED. 

Sept. i-jth, 17S5. 

While at the stook the shearers cow'r 
To shun the bitter blaudin' show'r. 
Or in the gulravage rinnin scour ; 

To pass the time, 
To you I dedicate the hour 

In idle rhyme. 

My Musie, tir'd wi' monie a sonnet 

On gown, an' ban', an' douse black bonnet. 



48 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

Is grown right eerie now she's done it, 

Lest they shou'd blame her, 

An' rouse their holy thunder on it. 

And anathem her. 

I own 'twas rash, an' rather hardy, 
That I, a simple countra bardie, 
Shou'd meddle wi' a pack so sturdy, 

Wha, if they ken me, 
Can easy, wi' a single wordie, 

Lowse hell upon me. 

But I gae mad at their grimaces, 
Their sighin', cantin' grace-proud faces, 
Their three-mile prayers, an' hauf-mile graces, 

Their raxin' conscience, 
Whase greed, revenge, an' pride disgraces 

Waur nor their nonsense. 

There's Gaw'n, misca'd waur than a beast, 
Wha has mair honour in his breast 
Than monie scores as guid's the priest 

Wha sae abus'd him; 
An' may a bard no crack his jest 

What way they've us'd him ? 

See him, the poor man's friend in need. 
The gentleman in word an' deed. 
An' shall his fame an' honour bleed 

By worthless skellums, 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 49 

An' not a Muse erect her head 

To cowe the blellums ? 

O Pope, had I thy satire's darts 
To gie the rascals their deserts, 
I'd rip their rotten, hollow hearts, 

An' tell aloud 
Their jugglin' hocus-pocus arts 

To cheat the crowd. 

God knows, I'm no the thing I shou'd be. 
Nor am I even the thing I cou'd be, 
But, twenty times, I rather would be 

An atheist clean, 
Than under gospel colours hid be, 

Just for a screen. 

An honest man may like a glass, 
An honest man may like a lass, 
But mean revenge, an' malice fause. 

He'll still disdain. 
An' then cry zeal for gospel laws. 

Like some we ken. 

They tak religion in their mouth ; 
They talk o' mercy, grace, an truth, 
For what ? to gie their malice skouth 

On some puir wight. 
An' hunt him down, owre right an' ruth. 

To ruin streicht. 



50 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

All hail, Religion ! maid divine ! 
Pardon a muse sae mean as mine, 
Who in her rough imperfect line 

Thus daurs to name thee ; 
To stigmatize false friends of thine 

Can ne'er defame thee. 

Tho' blotcht an' foul wi' monie a stain, 

An' far unworthy of thy train, 

Wi' trembling voice I tune my strain 

To join wi' those, 
Who boldly daur thy cause maintain, * 

In spite o' foes : 

In spite o' crowds, in spite o' mobs, 
In spite of undermining jobs. 
In spite o' dark banditti stabs 

At worth an' merit. 
By scoundrels, even wi' holy robes, 

But hellish spirit. 

O Ayr ! my dear, my native ground ! 
Within thy presbyterial bound, 
A candid lib'ral band is found 

Of public teachers. 
As men, as Christians too, renown'd, 

An' manly preachers. 

Sir, in that circle you are nam'd. 
Sir, in that circle you are fam'd ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURA'S. 5 I 

An' some, l)y whom your doctrine's blam'd ; 

(Which gies ye honour,) 
Even, Sir, by them your heart's esteem'd, « 

An' winning manner. 

Pardon this freedom I have ta'en. 
An' if impertinent I've been, 
Impute it not, good Sir, in ane 

Whase heart ne'er wrang'd ye, 
But to his utmost would befriend 

Ought that belang'd ye. 



TO JAMES SMITH. 

Friendship! niysterioics ccmc7it of the soul! 

Su'cefner of Life, and solder of Society ! 

I owe thee much. Blair, 

Dear Smith, the slee'st, paukie thief, 
That e'er attempted stealth or rief. 
Ye surely hae some warlock-breef 

Owre human hearts ; 
For ne'er a bosom yet was prief 

Against your arts. 

For me, I swear by sun an' moon, 
And ev'ry star that blinks aboon, 
Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoon 

Just gaun to see you ; 
An' ev'ry ither pair that's done, 

Mair taen I'm wi' vou. 



52 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

That auld, capricious carlin, Nature, 

To mak amends for scrimpit stature, 

»She's turn'd you aff, a human creature 

On her first plan, 
And in her freaks, on ev'ry feature, 

She's wrote, the Man. 

Just now I've taen the fit o' rhyme. 
My barmie noddle's working prime. 
My fancie yerkit up sublime 

Wi' hasty summon : 
Hae ye a leisure-moment's time 

To hear what's comin ? 

Some rhyme, a neebor's name to lash ; 

Some rhyme (vain thought !) for needfu' cash ; 

Some rhyme to court the countra clash. 

An' raise a din ; 
For me, an aim I never fash ; 

I rhyme for fun. 

The star that rules my luckless lot, 

Has fated me the russet coat. 

An' damm'd my fortune to the groat; 

But, in requit, 
Has blest me with a random shot 

O' countra wit 

This while my notion's taen a sklent. 
To try my fate in guid, black prent ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 53 

But still the mair I'm that way bent, 
Something cries, " Hoolie ! 

I red you, honest man, tak tent ! 
Ye'll shaw your folly. 

There's ither poets, much your betters. 
Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters, 
Hae thought they had ensured their debtors 

A' future ages ; 
Now moths deform in shapeless tatters, 

Their unknown pages." 

Then farewell hopes o' laurel boughs, 
To garland my poetic brows ! 
Henceforth Til rove where busy ploughs 

Are whistlin' thrang, 
An' teach the lanely heights an' howes 

My rustic sang. 

I'll wander on, wi' tentless heed 
How never-halting moments speed, 
Till fate shall snap the brittle thread : 

Then, all unknown, 
Til lay me with th' inglorious dead. 

Forgot and gone ! 

But why o' Death begin a tale ? 
Just now we're living sound an' hale ; 
Then top and maintop crowd the sail. 

Heave Care o'er side ! 
And large, before Enjoyment's gale. 

Let's tak the tide. 



54 SELEC7' POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

This life, sae far's I understand, 

Is a' enchanted fairy-land, 

Where pleasure is the magic wand, 

That, wielded right, 
Maks hours like minutes, hand in hand, 

Dance by fu' light. 

The magic wand then let us wield : 
For, ance that five-an '-forty's speel'd, 
See, crazy, weary, joyless Eild, 

Wi' wrinkl'd face. 
Comes hostin, hirplin owre the field, 

Wi' creepin pace. 

When ance life's day draws near the gloamin, 
Then fareweel vacant careless roamin ; 
An' fareweel cheerfu' tankards foamin, 

An' social noise ; 
An' fareweel dear deluding woman, 

The joy of joys ! 

O Life ! how pleasant in thy morning. 
Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning ! 
Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning, 

W'e frisk away, 
Like schoolboys, at th' expected warning, 

To joy an' play. 

We wander there, we wander here, 
We e3^e the rose upon the brier, 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 55 

Unmindful that the thorn is near, 

Among the leaves : 
And tho' the puny wound appear, 

Short while it grieves. 

Some, lucky, find a flow'ry spot. 

For which they never toil'd nor swat ; 

They drink the sweet and eat the fat, 

But care or pain ; 
And, haply, eye the barren hut 

With high disdain. 

With steady aim, some Fortune chase ; 
Keen hope does ev'ry sinew brace ; 
Thro' fair, thro' foul, they urge the race, 

And seize the prey ; 
Then cannie, in some cozie place. 

They close the day. 

And others, like your humble servan'. 
Poor wights ! nae rules nor roads observin, 
To right or left, eternal swervin. 

They zig-zag on ; 
Till, curst with age, obscure an' starvin. 

They aften groan. 

Alas! what bitter toil an' straining — 
But truce wi' peevish, poor complaining ! 
Is fortune's fickle Luna waning ? 

E'en let her gang ! 
Beneath what light she has remaining. 

Let's sing our sang. 



56 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

My pen I here fling to the door, 

And kneel, ye Pow'rs ! and warm implore, 

"Tho' I should wander Terra o'er. 

In all her climes, 
Grant me but this, I ask no more, 

Ay rowth o' rhymes. 

Gie dreeping roasts to countra Lairds, 
Till icicles hing frae their beards ; 
Gie fine braw claes to fine Life-guards, 

And Maids of Honour ; 
An' yill an' whisky gie to Cairds; 

Until they sconner. 

A Title, Dempster merits it ; 

A Garter gie to Willie Pitt ; 

Gie Wealth to some be-ledger'd Cit, 

In cent, per cent. ; 
But gie me real, sterling Wit, 

And I'm content. 

While Ye are pleased to keep me hale 
I sit down o'er my scanty meal, 
Be't water-brose, or muslin kail, 

Wi' cheerfu' face, 
As lang's the Muses dinna fail 

To say the grace. 



■)"> 



An anxious e'e I never throws 
Behint my lug, or by my nose ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 5/ 

I jouk beneath Misfortune's blows 

As weel's I may ; 
Sworn foe to Sorrow, Care, and Prose, 

I rhyme away. 

ye douce folk, that live by rule. 
Grave, tideless-blooded, calm, an' cool, 
Compar'd wi' you — O fool ! fool ! fool ! 

How much unlike ! 
Your hearts are just a standing pool, 
Your lives, a dyke ! 

Nae hair-brain'd sentimental traces. 
In your unletter'd, nameless faces ! 
In arioso trills and graces 

Ye never stray, 
But gravissimo, solemn basses 

Ye hum away. 

Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye're wise ; 
Nae ferly tho' ye do despise 
The hairum-scairum, ram-stam boys, 
The rattlin squad : 

1 see you upward cast your eyes — 

Ye ken the road. — 

Whilst I — but I shall hand me there — 
Wi' you ril scarce gang ony where — 
Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair, 

But quat my sang. 
Content wi' You to mak a pair, 

Whare'er I gang. 



58 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

SEE! THE SMOKING BOWL BEFORE US. 

Tune — '■'■Jolly Mortals, fill your glasses:'' 

See ! the smoking bowl before us, 
Mark our jovial ragged ring ; 

Round and round take up the chorus, 
And in raptures let us sing : 

CHORUS. 

A fig for those by law protected ! 

Liberty's a glorious feast ! 
Courts for cowards were erected, 

Churches built to please the priest. 

What is title ? what is treasure ? 

What is reputation's care ? 
If we lead a life of pleasure, 

'Tis no matter, how or where ! 

A fig, &c. 

With the ready trick and fable. 
Round we wander all the day ; 

And at night, in barn or stable, 
Hug our doxies on the hay. 

A fig, &c. 

Does the train-attended carriage 
Thro' the country lighter rove ? 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 59 

Does the sober bed of marriage 

f lov 
A fig, &c. 



Witness brighter scenes of love ? 



Life is all a variorum, 

We regard not how it goes ; 

Let them cant about decorum 
Who have characters to lose. 

A %, &c. 

Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets ! 

Here's to all the wandering train ! 
Here's our ragged brats and callets ! 

One and all cry out. Amen ! 

A fig, &c. 



HALLOWEEN. 

Yes ' let the rich deride., the prortd disdain. 
The simple pleasures of the lowly train ; 
To me more dear, congenial to my heart, 
One native charm, than all the gloss of art. 

Goldsmith. 

Upon that night, when Fairies light 

On Cassilis Downans dance, 
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze, 

On sprightly coursers prance ; 
Or for Colean the rout is ta'en. 

Beneath the moon's pale beams ; 
There, up the Cove, to stray an' rove 

Amang the rocks and streams 

To sport that night ; 



6o SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Amang the bonnie, winding banks, 

Where Doon rins, wimpUn, clear, 
Where Bruce ance rul'd the martial ranks, 

An' shook his Carrick spear. 
Some merry, friendly, countra folks, 

Together did convene. 
To burn their nits, an' pou their stocks, 

An' hand their Halloween 

Fu' blythe that night. 



The lasses feat, an' cleanly neat, 

Mair braw than when they're fine ; 
Their faces blythe, fu' sweetly kythe, 

Hearts leal, an' warm, an' kin : 
The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs, 

Weel knotted on their garten, 
Some unco blate, an' some wi' gabs, 

Gar lasses' hearts gang startin 

Whyles fast at night. 



Then, first an' foremost, thro' the kail, 

Their stocks maun a' be sought ance : 
They steek their een, an' grape, an' wale, 

For muckle anes, an' straught anes. 
Poor hav'rel Will fell aff the drift. 

An' wander'd thro' the Bow- kail, 
An' pou't, for want o' better shift, 

A runt was like a sow-tail, 

Sae bow't that night. 



SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 6 1 

Then, straught or crooked, yird or nane, 

They roar an' cry a' throw'ther ; 
The vera wee things, toddlin, rin, 

Wi' stocks out-owre their shouther; 
An' gif the custocks sweet or sour, 

Wi' joctelegs they taste them ; 
Syne coziely, aboon the door, 

Wi' cannie care, they've plac'd them 
To lie that night. 



The lasses straw frae 'mang them a' 

To pou their stalks o' corn ; 
But Rab slips out, an' jinks about, 

Behint the muckle thorn : 
He grippet Nelly hard an' fast ; 

Loud skirl'd a' the lasses ; 
But her tap-pickle maist was lost, 

When kiutlin i' the fause-house 
Wi' him that night. 



The auld guidwife's weel-hoordit nits 
Are round an' round divided. 

An' monie lads' and lasses' fates 
Are there that night decided : 



Some kindle, couthie, side by side, 
An' burn thegither trimly ; 

Some start awa, wi' saucy pride, 
An' jump out-owre the chimlie 



Fu' high that night. 



62 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

• Jean slips in twa, wi' tentie e'e ; 

Wha 'twas, she wadna tell ; 
But this is Jock, and this is me, 

She says in to hersel : 
He bleez'd owre her, an' she owre him, 

As they wad never mair part ; 
Till fuff ! he started up the lum, 
An' Jean had e'en a sair heart 
To see't that night. 



Poor Willie, wi' his bow-kail runt, 

Was brunt wi' primsie Mallie, 
An' Mary, nae doubt, took the drunt, 

To be compar'd to Willie : 
Mall's nit lap out, wi' pridefu' fling, 

An' her ain fit it brunt it ; 
While Willie lap, an' swoor by jing, 

'Twas just the way he wanted 
To be that night. 



Nell had the fause-house in her min' 

She pits hersel an' Rob in ; 
In loving bleeze they sweetly join. 

Till white in ase they're sobbin: 
Nell's heart was dancin at the view ; 

She whisper'd Rob to leuk for't : 
Rob, stownlins, prie'd her bonnie mou, 

Fu' cozie in the neuk for't. 

Unseen that night. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 63 

But Merran sat behint their backs, 

Her thoughts on Andrew Bell ; 
She lea'es them gashin at their cracks, 

An' slips out by hersel : 
She thro' the yard the nearest taks, 

An' to the kiln she goes then, 
Aiv darklins grapit for the banks, 

And in the blue-clue throws then, 
Right fear't that night. 



An' aye she win't, an' ay she swat, 

I wat she made nae jaukin ; 
Till something held within the pat, 

Guid Lord ! but she was quaukin ! 
But whether 'twas the Deil himsel. 

Or whether 'twas a bauk-en', 
Or whether it was Andrew Bell, 

She did na wait on talkin 

To spier that night. 



Wee Jenny to her Grannie says, 

"Will ye go wi' me, Grannie ? 
I'll eat the apple at the glass, 

I gat frae uncle Johnie : '' 
She fuff't her pipe wi' sic a lunt. 

In wrath she was sae vap'rin, 
She notic't na, an aizle brunt 

Her braw new worset apron 

Out thro' that nis^ht. 



64 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

" Ye little Skelpie-limmer's face ! 

I daur you try sic sportin, 
As seek the foul Thief ony place, 

For him to spae your fortune ? 
Nae doubt but ye may get a sight ! 

Great cause ye hae to fear it ; 
For monie a ane has got a fright, 

An' liv'd an' di'd deleeret, 
On sic a night. 



Ae Hairst afore the Sherra-moor, 

I mind't as weel's yestreen, 
I was a gilpey then, I'm sure 

I was na past fyfteen : 
The simmer had been cauld an' wat. 

An' stuff was unco' green ; 
An' ay a rantin kirn we gat, 

An' just on Halloween 

It fell that night." 



Then up gat fechtin Jamie Fleck, 

An' he swoor by his conscience, 
That he could saw hemp-seed a peck ; 

For it was a' but nonsense : 
The auld guidman raught down the pock, 

An' out a handfu' gied him ; 
Syne bad him slip frae 'mang the folk, 

Sometime when nae ane see'd him, 
An' try't that night. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 65 

He marches thro' amang the stacks, 

Tho' he was something sturtin ; 
The graip he for a harrow taks, 

An' haurls at his curpin : 
An' ev'ry now an' then, he says, 

" Hemp-seed, I saw thee, 
An' her that is to be my lass, 

Come after me an' draw thee 
As fast this night." 



He whistl'd up ' Lord Lenox' March,' 

To keep his courage cheery ; 
Altho' his hair began to arch, 

He was sae fley'd an' eerie : 
Till presently he hears a squeak, 

An' then a grane an' gruntle ; 
He by his shouther gae a keek, 

An' tumbl'd wi' a wintle 

Out-owre that night. 



He roar'd a horrid murder-shout, 

In dreadfu' desperation ! 
An' young an' auld come rinnin out, 

An' hear the sad narration : 
He swoor 'twas hilchin Jean M'Craw, 

Or crouchie Merran Humphie, 
Till stop ! she trotted thro' them a' ; 

An' wha was it but G7'uviphic 
Asteer that night ! 



66 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Meg fain wad to the barn gaen 

To winn three wechts o' naething; 
But for to meet the Deil her lane, 

She pat but little faith in • 
She gies the Herd a pickle nits, 

And twa red-cheekit apples, 
To watch, while for the barn she sets, 

In hopes to see Tarn Kipples 
That vera night. 



She turns the key, wi' cannie thraw. 

An' owre the threshold ventures ; 
But first on Sawnie gies a ca'. 

Syne bauldly in she enters ; 
A ratton rattl'd up the wa', 

An' she cry'd, Lord preserve her ! 
An' ran thro' midden-hole an' a'. 

An' pray'd wi' zeal an' fervour, 
Fu' fast that night. 



They hoy't out Will, wi' sair advice ; 

They hecht him some fine braw ane ; 
It chanced the stack he faddom't thrice 

Was timmer-propt for thrawin : 
He taks a swirlie, auld moss-oak. 

For some black, grousome Carlin ; 
An' loot a wince, an' drew a stroke. 

Till skin in blypes cam haurlin 

Aff's nieves that night. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 6j 

A wanton widow Leezie was, 

As cantie as a kittlin : 
But Och ! that night, amang tlie shaws, 

She gat a fearfu' settlin ! 
She thro' the whins, an' by the cairn, 

An' owre the hill gaed scrievin, 
Whare three lairds' lan's met at a burn. 

To dip her left sark-sleeve in, 

Was bent that night. 



Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, 

As thro' the glen it wimpl't ; 
Whyles round a rocky scar it strays ; 

Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't , 
Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, 

Wi' bickerin, dancin dazzle ; 
Whyles cookit underneath the braes. 

Below the spreading hazel. 

Unseen that night. 



Amang the brachens on the brae, 

Between her an' the moon, 
The Deil, or else an outler Quey, 

Gat up an' gae a croon ; 
Poor Leezie's heart maist lap the hool 

Near lav'rock height she jumpit. 
But mist a fit, an' in the pool 

Out-owre the lugs she plumpit, 

Wi' a plunge that night. 



68 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

In order, on the clean hearth-stane, 

The luggies three are ranged ; 
And ev'ry time great care is taen, 

To see them duly changed : 
Auld uncle John, wha wedlock's joys 

Sin' Mar's-year did desire. 
Because he gat the toom dish thrice, 

He heav'd them on the fire 

In wrath that night. 

Wi' merry sangs, and friendly cracks, 

I wat they did na weary ; 
And unco tales, an' funnie jokes, 

Their sports were cheap and cheery ; 
Till butter'd So'ns, wi' fragrant lunt, 

Set a' their gabs a-steerin ; 
Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt, 

They parted aff careerin 

Fu' blythe that night. 



TO A MOUSE, 

On Turning Her up in Her Nest with the Plough, 
November, 1785, 

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, 
O, what a panic's in thy breastie ! 
Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 

Wi' bickering brattle ! • 
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, 

Wi' murd'ring pattle ! 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 69 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
Has broken Nature's social union, 
An' justifies that ill opinion, 

Which makes thee startle, 
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, 

An' fellow-mortal ! 

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve ; 
What then ? poor beastie, thou maun live ! 
A daimen icker in a thrave 

'S a sma' request : 
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave. 

And never miss't ! 

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin ! 
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin ! 
An' naething, now, to big a new ane, 

O' foggage green ! 
An' bleak December's winds ensuin, 

Baith snell an' keen ! 

Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, 
An' weary winter comin fast. 
An' cozie here, beneath the blast, 

Thou thought to dwell, 
Till crash ! the cruel coulter past, 

Out thro' thy cell. 

That w^ee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, 
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble ! 



/O SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, 
But house or hald, 

To thole the winter's sleety dribble, 
An' cranreuch cauld ! 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain : 
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 

Gang aft a-gley. 
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, 

For promis'd joy. 

Still thou art blest, compared wi' me ! 
The present only toucheth thee : 
But, Och ! I backward cast my e'e 

On prospects drear ! 
An' forward, tho' I canna see, 

I guess an' fear ' 



THE VISION. 

DUAN FIRST. 



The sun had clos'd the winter day. 
The Curlers quat their roarin play, 
An' hunger'd maukin taen her way 

To kail-yards green. 
While faithless snaws ilk step betray 

Whare she has been. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. /I 

The thresher's weary flingin-tree 
The lee-lang day had tired me ; 
And whan the day had clos'd his e'e. 

Far i' the west, 
Ben i' the spence, right pensiveUe, 

I gaed to rest. 

There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek, 
I sat and ey'd the spewuig reek, 
That fill'd, wi' hoast-provoking smeek, 

The auld clay biggin ; 
An' heard the restless rattons squeak 

About the riggin. 

All in this mottie, misty clime, 
I backward- mus'd on wasted time. 
How I had spent my youthfu' prime, 

An' done nae-thing. 
But stringin blethers up in rhyme, 

For fools to sing. 

Had I to guid advice but harkit, 
I might, by this, hae led a market, 
Or strutted in a bank, and clarkit 

My cash-account : 
While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit, 

Is a' th' amount. 

I started, mutt'ring, blockhead ! coof ! 
And heav'd on high my waukit loof. 



72 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

To swear by a' yon starry roof, 
Or some rash aith, 

That I, henceforth, would be rhyme proof 
Till my last breath — 

When click ! the string the snick did draw ; 
And jee ! the door gaed to the wa' ; 
And by my ingle-lowe I saw, 

Now bleezin bright, 
A tight, outlandish Hizzie, braw, 

Come full in sight. 

Ye need na doubt, I held my whisht ; 
The infant aith, half-form'd, was crusht; 
I glowr'd as eerie's I'd been dusht 

In some wild glen ; 
When sweet, like modest worth, she blusht. 

And stepped ben. 

Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs 
Were twisted, gracefu' round her brows, 
I took her for some Scottish Muse, 

By that same token ; 
And come to stop these reckless vows, 

Would soon been broken. 

A "hair-bram'd, sentimental trace," 
Was strongly marked in her face ; 
A wildly-witty, rustic grace 

Shone full upon her ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 73 

Her eye, ev'n turn'd on empty space, 

Beam'd keen with honour. 

Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen, 
Till half a leg was scrimply seen ; 
And such a leg ! my bonnie Jean 

Could only peer it ; 
Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean, 

Nane else came near it. 

Her mantle large, of greenish hue, 

My gazing wonder chiefly drew ; 

Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling threw 

A lustre grand ; 
And seem'd, to my astonish'd view, 

A well-known land. 

Here, rivers in the sea were lost ; 
There, mountains to the skies were tost : 
Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast 

With surging foam ; 
There, distant shone Art's lofty boast, 

The lordly dome. 

Here, Doon pour'd down his far-fetch'd floods ; 
There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds, 
Auld hermit Ayr staw thro' his woods, 

On to the shore ; 
And many a lesser torrent scuds. 

With seeming roar. 



74 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

Low, in a sandy valley spread, 

An ancient Borough rear'd her head ; 

Still, as in Scottish story read, 

She boasts a race, 
To ev'ry nobler virtue bred. 

And polish'd grace. 

By stately tow'r or palace fair, 

Or ruins pendent in the air. 

Bold stems of Heroes, here and there, 

I could discern ; 
Some seem'd to muse, some seem'd to dare, 

With feature stern. 

My heart did glowing transport feel, 

To see a race heroic wheel. 

And brandish round the deep-dy'd steel 

In sturdy blows ; 
While back-recoiling seem'd to reel 

Their Suthron foes. 

His Country's Saviour, mark him well ! 
Bold Richardton's heroic swell ; 
The Chief on Sark who glorious fell, 

In high command ; 
And He whom ruthless fates expel 

His native land. 

There, where a sceptr'd Pictish shade 
Stalk'd round his ashes lowly laid, 



SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 75 

I mark'd a martial Race, pourtray'd 

In colours strong; 
Bold, soldier-featur'd, undismay'd 
They strode along. 

Thro' many a wild, romantic grove, 
Near many a hermit-fancy'd cove, 
(Fit haunts for Friendship or for Love 

In musing mood,) 
An aged Judge, I saw him rove. 

Dispensing good. 

With deep-struck reverential awe 
The learned Sire and Son I saw. 
To Nature's God and Nature's law 

They gave their lore : 
This, all its source and end to draw ; 

That, to adore. 

Brydon's brave Ward I well could spy, 
Beneath old Scotia's smiling eye ; 
Who call'd on Fame, low standing by. 

To hand him on. 
Where many a Patriot name on high, 

And hero shone. 



DUAN SECOND. 

With musing-deep, astonish'd stare, 
I view'd the heavenly-seeming Fair ; 



76 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

A whisp'ring throb did witness bear, 
Of kindred sweet, 

When with an elder Sister's air 
She did me greet. 

" All hail ! my own inspired Bard ! 
In me thy native Muse regard ! 
Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard, 

Thus poorly low ! 
I come to give thee such reward 

As we bestow. 



Know, the great Genius of this land 
lias many a light, aerial band. 
Who, all beneath his high command. 

Harmoniously, 
As Arts or Arms they understand. 

Their labours ply. 

They Scotia's Race among them share. 
Some fire the soldier on to dare ; 
Some rouse the patriot up to bare 

Corruption's heart : 
Some teach the bard — a darling care. 

The tuneful art. 

'Mong swelling floods of reeking gore. 
They, ardent, kindling spirits pour ; 
Or, 'mid the venal Senate's roar, 

They, sightless, stand, 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. // 

To mend the honest Patriot lore, 
And grace the hand. 

And when the bard, or hoary sage, 
Charm or instruct the future age, 
They bind the wild, poetic rage 

In energy, 
Or point the inconclusive page 

Full on the eye. 

Hence, Fullarton, the brave and young; 
Hence, Dempster's zeal-inspired tongue ; 
Hence, sweet harmonious Beattie sung 

His ' Minstrel lays ' ; 
Or tore, with noble ardour stung. 

The sceptic's bays. 

To lower orders are assign'd 

The humbler ranks of human-kind, 

The rustic bard, the lab'ring hind. 

The artisan ; 
All choose, as various they're inclin'd 

The various man. 

When yellow waves the heavy grain, 

The threat'ning storm some strongly rein ; 

Some teach to meliorate the plain 

With tillage-skill ; 
And some instruct the Shepherd-train, 

Blythe o'er the hill 



y8 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Some hint the lover's harmless wile ; 
Some grace the maiden's artless smile ; 
Some soothe the laborer's weary toil, 

For humble gains, 
And make his cottage-scenes beguile 

His cares and pains. 

Some, bounded to a district-space, 
Explore at large man's infant race, 
To mark the embryotic trace 

Of rustic Bard ; 
And careful note each op'ning grace, 

A guide and guard. 

Of these am I — Coila my name ; 

And this district as mine I claim. 

Where once the Campbells, chiefs of fame. 

Held ruling pow'r : 
I mark'd thy embryo-tuneful flame, 

Thy natal hour. 

^^'ith future hope, I oft would gaze, 

Fond, on thy little early ways, 

Thy rudely-caroU'd, chiming phrase, 

In uncouth rhymes, 
Fir'd at the simple, artless lays 

Of other times. 

I saw thee seek the sounding shore. 
Delighted with the dashing roar ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 79 

Or when the North his lieecy store 

Drove thro' the sky, 
I saw grim Nature's visage hoar 

Struck thy young eye. 

Or when the deep green-mantrd Earth 
Warm-cherish'd ev'ry tiow'ret's birth, 
And joy and music pouring forth 

In ev'ry grove, 
I saw thee eye tlie gen'ral mirth 

With boundless love. 

When ripen'd fields, and azure skies, 
Call'd forth the reaper's rustling noise, 
I saw thee leave their ev'ning joys, 

And lonely stalk. 
To vent thy bosom's swelling rise 

In pensive walk. 

When youthful love, warm-blushing strong, 
Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, 
Those accents, grateful to thy tongue, 

Th' adored Name, 
I taught thee how to pour in song. 

To soothe thy flame. 

I saw thy pulse's maddening play, 
Wild send thee Pleasure's devious way. 
Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray, 

By Passion driven ; 



8o SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

But yet the light that led astray 

Was light from Heaven. 

I taught thy manners-painting strains, 
The loves, the ways of simple swains, 
Till now, o'er all my wide domains 

Thy fame extends ; 
And some, the pride of Colia's plains, 

Became thy friends. 

Thou can'st not learn, nor can I show. 
To paint with Thomson's landscape glow ; 
Or wake the bosom-melting throe. 

With Shenstone's art ; 
Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow 

Warm on the heart. 

Yet, all beneath th' unrivall'd rose, 

The lowly daisy sweetly blows ; 

The' large the forest's monarch throws 

His army-shade, 
Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows, 

Adown the slade. 



Jd' 



Then never murmur nor repine; 
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine ; 
And trust me, not Potosi's mine, 

Nor king's regard, 
Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine, 

A rustic bard. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 8l 

To give my counsels all in one, 
Thy tuneful flame still careful fan ; 
Preserve the dignity of Man, 

With soul erect ; 
And trust the Universal Plan 

Will all protect. 

And wear thou tins'" — she solemn said, 
And bound the holly round my head : 
The polish'd leaves and berries red 

Did rustling play ; 
And, like a passing thought, she fled 

In light away. 



THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 

INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ., OF AYR. 

Let not Atttbition mock their useful toil, 
Their ho7tiely joys, and destiny obscure ; 

Nor Grandetcr hear, with a disdainful smile. 
The short and simple annals of the Poor. 

Gray. 

My lov'd, my honoured, much respected friend ! 

No mercenary bard his homage pays : 
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end ; 

My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise; 
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, 

The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene ; 



82 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

The native feelings strong, the guileless ways ; 
What Aiken in a cottage would have been; 
Ah ! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I 
ween. 

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 

The short'ning winter-day is near a close ; 
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ; 

The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose : 
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes. 

This night his weekly moil is at an end. 
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, 

Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, 
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hanu- 
ward bend. 

At length his lonely cot appears in view, 

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through 

To meet their Dad, wi' flitcherin noise an" glee. 
His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnilie, 

His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile, 
The lisping infant prattling on his knee. 

Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, 
And makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil. 

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in. 
At service out, amang the farmers roun' ; 

Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin 
A cannie errand to a neebor town : 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. ^^ 

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown, 
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, 

Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a bra^y new gown, 
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee. 

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. 



With joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet, 

An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers : 
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd fleet; 

Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears ; 
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; 

Anticipation forward points the view. 
The mother, wi' her needle an' her sheers, 

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; 
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 



Their master's an' their mistress's command, 

The younkers a' are warned to obey ; 
An' mind their labours wd' an' eydent hand. 

An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play: 
" An' O ! be sure to fear the Lord alway. 

An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night ! 
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, 

Implore His counsel and assisting might : 
They never sought in vain that souglit the Lord 
aright ! " 

But hark ! a rap comes gently to the door. 
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, 



$4 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Tells how a neebor lad came o'er the moor, 
To do some errands and convoy her hame. 

The wily mother sees the conscious flame 
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek ; 

Wi' heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name. 
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak ; 

Weel pleas'd the mother hears, it's nae wild, worti 
less rake. 



Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben ; 

A strapp'n youth ; he takes the mother's eye ; 
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en ; 

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. 
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, 

But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave ; 
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 

What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave ; 
Weel-pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the 
lave. 

O happy love ! where love like this is found ! 

O heart-felt raptures ! bliss beyond compare ! 
I've paced much this weary, mortal round. 
And sage experience bids me this declare — 
" If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, 

One cordial in this melancholy vale, 
' Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, 
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale. 
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning 
gale." 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 85 

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart — 

A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth ! 
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art. 

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ? 
Curse on his perjur'd arts ! dissembling smooth ! 

Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd ? 
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth. 

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child ? 
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction 
wild ! 

But now the supper crowns their simple board. 

The healsome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food : 
The soupe their only Hawkie does afford. 

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood ; 
The dame brings forth in complimental mood. 

To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell. 
An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid ; 

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell. 
How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell. 

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face. 

They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; 
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace. 

The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride : 
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside. 

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare ; 
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 

He wales a portion with judicious care, 
And " Let us worship God 1 " he says, with solemn 
air. 



86 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; 

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim : 
Perhaps " Dundee's " wild warbling measures rise, 

Or plaintive " Martyrs," worthy of the name ; 
Or noble " Elgin " beets the heav'nward flame, 

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays • 
Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame ; 

The tickl'd ears no heartfelt raptures raise ; 
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 

How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 
Or how the royal Bard did groaning lie 

Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire ; 
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry ; 

Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; 
Or other holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre. 

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme. 

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed ; 
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, 

Had not on earth whereon to lay His head ; 
How His first followers and servants sped ; 

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : 
How he, who lone in Patmos banished, 

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand ; 
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by Heav- 
en's command. 



SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 8/ 

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King, 

The saint, the father, and the husband prays ; 
Hope " springs exulting on triumphant wing," 

That thus they all shall meet in future days : 
There ever bask in uncreated rays. 

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear. 
Together hymning their Creator's praise, 

In such society, yet still more dear ; 
While circlins: Time moves round in an eternal 
sphere. 

Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride, 

In all the pomp of method, and of art. 
When men display to congregations wide 

Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart ! 
The Power, incens'd, the pageant will desert, 

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; 
But haply, in some cottage far apart, 

May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul ; 
And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enroll. 

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way ; 

The youngling cottagers retire to rest-: 
The parent-pair their secret homage pay. 

And proffer up to H.eav'n the warm request, 
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, 

And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride. 
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 

For them and for their little ones provide ; 
But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. 



88 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 

That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad : 
Princes and lords are but the breath of kinjrs, 

" An honest man's the noblest work of God : " 
And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, 

The cottage leaves the palace far behind ; 
What is a lordling's pomp ? a cumbrous load, 

Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, 
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd! 

O Scotia ! my dear, my native soil ! 

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! 
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet con- 
tent ! 
And, Oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent 

From luxury's contagion, weak and vile ; 
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 

A virtuous populace may rise the while. 
And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd 
Isle. 

O Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide 

That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted heart ; 
Who dar'd to, nobly, stem tyrannic pride. 

Or nobly die, the second glorious part, 
(The patriot's God, peculiarly thou art. 

His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward ! ) 
O never, never, Scotia's realm desert, 

But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard. 
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard ! 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 89 

DEATH AND DOCTOR HORNBOOK. 

A TRUE STORY. 

Some books are lies frae end to end, 
And some great lies were never penn'd : 
Ev'n ministers, they hae been kenn'd. 

In holy rapture, 
A rousing whid, at times, to vend. 

And nail't wi' Scripture. 

But this that I am gaun to tell. 
Which lately on a night befell, 
Is just as true's the Deil's in hell 

Or Dublin city : 
That e'er he nearer comes oursel 

's a muckle pity. 

The clachan yill had made me canty, 

I wasna fou, but just had plenty; 

I stacher'd whyles, but yet took tent ay 

To free the ditches ; 
An' hillocks, stanes, an' bushes, kenn'd ay 

Frae ghaists an' witches. 

The rising moon began to glowr 
The distant Cumnock hills out-owre : 
To count her horns, wi' a' my pow'r, 

I set mysel ; 
But whether she had three or four, 

I cou'd na tell. 



90 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

I was come round about the hill, 
And todlin down on Willie's mill, 
Setting my staff, wi' a' my skill. 

To keep me sicker ; 
Tho' leeward whyles, against my will, 

I took a bicker. 

I there wi' Something did foregather. 

That pat me in an eerie swither ; 

An awfu' scythe, out-owre ae shouther. 

Clear-dangling, hang : 
A three-taed leister on the ither 

Lay, large an' lang. 

Its statue seem'd lang Scotch ells twa, 
The queerest shape that e'er I saw. 
For fient a wame it had ava. 

And then its shanks. 
They were as thin, as sharp an' sma' 

As cheeks o' branks. 

"Guid-een," quo' I ; " Friend hae ye been mawin. 
When ither folks are busy sawin ? " 
It seem'd to mak a kind o' stan'. 

But naething spak ; 
At length, says I, " Friend, whare ye gaun. 

Will ye go back ? " 

It spak right howe — " My name is Death, 
But be na fley'd." — Quoth I, "Guid faith, 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 9I 

Ye're maybe come to stap my breath ; 

But tent me, billie : 
I red ye weel, tak car o' skaith, 

See, there's a gully ! " 

" Gudeman," quo' he, " put up your whittle, 
I'm no design'd to try its mettle ; 
But if I did, I wad be kittle 

To be mislear'd, 
I wad na mind it, no that spittle 

Out-owre my beard." 

"Weel, weel ! " says I, " a bargain be't; 
Come, gies your hand, an' sae we're gree't ; 
We'll ease our shanks an' tak a seat. 

Come gies your news ; 
This while ye hae been mony a gate, 

At mony a house," 

" Ay, ay ! " quo' he, an' shook his head, 
" It's e'en a lang, lang time indeed 
Sin' I began to nick the thread. 

An' choke the breath : 
Folk maun do something for their bread. 

An' sae maun Death. 

Sax thousand years are near-hand fled, 

Sin' I was to the hutching bred, 

An' mony a scheme in vain's been laid. 

To stap or scaur me ; 
Till ane Hornbook's ta'en up the trade. 

An' faith, he'll waur me. 



92 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Ye ken Jock Hornbook i' the Clachan, 
Deil mak his king's-hood in a spleuchan ! 
He's grown sae well acquaint wi' Buchan 

An' ither chaps, 
The weans haud out their fingers laughin 

And pouk my hips. 

'Twas but yestreen, nae farther gaen, 

I threw a noble throw at ane ; 

Wi' less, I'm sure, I've hundreds slain : 

But deil-ma-care, 
It just play'd dirl on the bane, 

But did nae mair. 

Hornbook was by, wi' ready art, 
And had sae fortify'd the part. 
That when I looked to my dart. 

It was sae blunt, 
Fient haet o't wad hae pierc'd the heart 

O' a kail-runt. 

I drew my scythe in sic a fury, 
I near-hand cowpit wi' my hurr)^. 
But yet the bauld Apothecary 

Withstood the shock ; 
I might as weel hae try'd a quarry 

O' hard whin rock. 

And then, a' doctor's saws and whittles, 
Of a' dimensions, shapes, an' mettles, 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 93 

A' kinds o' boxes, mugs, an' bottles, 

He's- sure to hae ; 

Their Latin names as fast he rattles 

As A B C. 

Calces o' fossils, earths, and trees ; 
True Sal-marinum o' the seas ; 
The Farina of beans and pease, 

He has't in plenty ; 
Aqua-fortis, what you please, 

He can content ye. 

Forbye some new, uncommon weapons, 

Urinus Spiritus of capons ; 

Or Mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings, 

Distill'd per se ; 
Sal-alkali o' Midge-tail clippings, 

And mony mae." 

Waes me for Johnny Ged's Hole now,'' 
Quoth I, "if that thae news be true ! 
His braw calf -ward whare gowans grew, 

Sae white and bonnie, 
Nae doubt they'll rive it wi' the plew ; 

They'll ruin Johnnie ! " 

The creature grain'd an eldritch laugh, 
And says, " Ye needna yoke the pleugh. 
Kirk-yards will soon be till'd eneugh, 

Tak ye nae fear : 
They'll a' be trench'd wi' mony a sheugh 

In twa-three year. 



94 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Whare I kill'd ane a fair strae-death, 
By loss o' blood or want of breath, 
This night I'm free to tak my aith, 

That Hornbook's skill 
Has clad a score i' their last claith, 

By drap and pill. 

An honest wabster to his trade, 

Whase wife's twa nieves were scarce well-bred, 

Gat tippence-worth to mend her head, 

When it was sair ; 
The wife slade cannie to her bed, 

But ne'er spak mair." 



A WINTER NIGHT. 

Poor naked ivrctches, wheresoever yon are.. 

That bide the felting of this fitilcss storm ' 

How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides, 

Your loop'd and windowed raggedness, defend you, 

From seasons such as these ? 

Shakespeare. 

When biting Boreas, fell and doure. 
Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r ; 
When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r, 

Far south the lift, 
Dim-dark'ning thro' the flaky show'r, 

Or whirling drift : 

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked, 
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked, 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 95 

While burns, wi' snawy wreeths up-choked, 

Wild-eddying swirl, 

Or thro' the mining outlet bocked, 

Down headlong hurl. 

List'ning, the doors an' winnocks rattle, 
I thought me on the ourie cattle, 
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle 

O' winter war, 
And thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle, 

Beneath a scar. 

Ilk happing bird, — wee, helpless thing ! 
That, in the merry months o' spring, 
Delighted me to hear thee sing, 

What comes o' thee ? 
Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering win' 

An' close thy e'e } 

Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd, 
Lone from your savage homes exil'd, 
The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoil'd 

My heart forgets. 
While pitiless the tempest wild 

Sore on you beats. 

Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign, 
Dark mufifl'd, view'd the dreary plain ; 
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train, 

Rose in my soul, 
When on my ear this plaintive strain. 

Slow, solemn, stole — 



96 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

" Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust ! 
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost ! 
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows ! 
Not all your rage, as now, united shows 
More hard unkindness, unrelenting. 
Vengeful malice unrepenting, 
Than heav'n-illumin'd man on brother man bestows ! 
See stern Oppression's iron grip, 
Or mad Ambition's gory hand. 
Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip, 

Woe, want, and murder o'er a land ! 
Ev'n in the peaceful rural vale, 
Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale. 
How pamper'd Luxury, Flatt'ry by her side. 
The parasite empoisoning her ear. 
With all the servile wretches in the rear. 
Looks o'er proud property, extended wide ; 
And eyes the simple rustic hind, 

Whose toil upholds the glitt'ring show, 
A creature of another kind. 
Some coarser substance, unrefin'd, 
Plac'd for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below. 

Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe, 
With lordly Honour's lofty brow. 

The pow'rs you proudly own ? 
Is there, beneath Love's noble name. 
Can harbour, dark, the selfish aim, 

To bless himself alone ! 
Mark maiden-innocence a prey 

To love-pretending snares. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 97 

This boasted honour turns away, 

Shunning soft pity's rising sway, 
Regardless of the tears, and unavailing pray'rs ! 

Perhaps this hour, in mis'ry's squalid nest, 

She strains your infant to her joyless breast, 
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking 
blast ! 



Oh ye ! who, sunk in beds of down. 

Feel not a want but what yourselves create. 

Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate, 

Whom friends and fortune quite disown ! 
Ill-satisfied keen nature's clam'rous call. 

Stretched on his straw he lays himself to 
sleep, 
While thro' the ragged roof and chinky wall, 
Chill o'er his slumbers, piles the drifty heap ! 
Think on the dungeon's grim confine. 
Where guilt and poor misfortune pine ! 
Guilt, erring man, relenting view ! 
But shall thy legal rage pursue 

The wretch, already crushed low. 

By cruel fortune's undeserved blow ? 
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress ; 
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss ! " 



I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer 

Shook off the pouthery snaw. 
And hail'd the morning with a cheer, 



A cottage-rousing craw. 



98 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

But deep this truth impress'd my mind 
Thro' all His works abroad, 

The heart benevolent and kind 
The most resembles God. 



THERE WAS A LAD. 

Tune — '■'•Daitity Davie." 

There was a lad was born in Kyle, 
But whatna day o' whatna style 
I doubt it's hardly worth the while 
To be sae nice wi' Robin. 

Robin was a rovin Boy, 

Rantin rovin, rantin rovin ; 

Robin was a rovin Boy, 
Rantin rovin Robin. 

Our monarch's hindmost year but ane 
Was five-and-twenty days begun, 
' Twas then a blast o' Janwar win' 
Blew hansel in on Robin. 

The gossip keekit in his loof, 
Quo' scho, " wha lives will see the proof, 
This waly boy will be nae coof, 
I think we'll ca' him Robin. 

He'll hae misfortunes great an' sma'. 
But ay a heart aboon them a' ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 99 

He'll be a credit till us a', 
We'll a' be proud o' Robin." 

But sure as three times three mak nine, 
I see by ilka score and line, 
This chap will dearly like our kin', 
So leeze me on thee, Robin." 

" Guid faith," quo' scho, " I doubt you, Sir, 
Ye gar the lassies lie aspar, 
But twenty fauts ye may hae waur, 
So blessings on thee, Robin ! " 

Robin was a rovin Boy, 

Rantin rovin, rantin rovin ; 

Robin was a rovin' Boy, 
Rantin' rovin' Robin. 



1786. 

THE AULD FARMER'S NEW-YEAR MORN- 
ING SALUTATION TO HIS AULD 
MARE, MAGGIE, 

ON GIVING HER THE ACCUSTOMED RIPP OF CORN TO HANSEL 
IN THE NEW YEAR. 

A GUID New-Year I wish thee, Maggie ! 
Hae, there's a ripp to thy auld baggie : 
Tho' thou's howe-backit, now, an' knaggie, 

I've seen the day, 
Thou could hae gane like ony staggie 

Out-owre the lay. 



lOO SELEC7' POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

Tho' now thou's dowie, stiff, an' crazy, 
An' thy auld hide's as white's a daisie, 
I've seen thee dappl't, sleek an' glaizie, 

A bonnie gray : 
He should been tight that daur't to raize thee, 

Ance in a day. 

Thou ance was i' the foremost rank, 
A filly buirdly, steeve, an' swank. 
An' set weel down a shapely shank, 

As e'er tread yird ; 
An' could hae flown out-owre a stank. 

Like onie bird. 

It's now some nine-an'-twenty year, 
Sin' thou was my guid-father's meere ; 
He gied me thee, o' tocher clear, 

An' fifty mark ; 
Tho' it was sma', 'twas weel-won gear. 

An' thou was stark. 

When first I gaed to woo my Jenny, 
Ye then was trottin wi' your minnie : 
Tho' ye was trickle, slee, an' funnie. 

Ye ne'er was donsie ; 
But hamel}^ tawie, quiet, an' cannie. 

An' unco sonsie. 

That day, ye pranc'd wi' muckle pride, 
When ye bure hame my bonnie bride ; 
An' sweet an' gracefu' she did ride, 
Wi' maiden air ! 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. lOI 

Kyle- Stewart I could bragged wide, 
For sic a pair. 

Tho' now ye dow but hoyte and hoble, 
An' wintle like a saumont-coble, 
That day ye was a j inker noble 

For heels an' win' ! 
An' ran them till they a' did wauble, 

Far, far behin'. 

When thou an' I were young and skeigh, 

An' stable-meals at fairs were dreigh, 

How thou wad prance, an' snore, an' skreigh. 

An' tak the road ! 
Town's-bodies ran, and stood abeigh, 

An' ca't thee mad. 

When thou was corn't, an' I was mellow. 
We took the road ay like a swallow : 
At Brooses thou had ne'er a fellow. 

For pith an' speed ; 
But ev'ry tail thou pay't them hollow, 

Where'er thou gaed. 

The sma', droop-rumpl't, hunter cattle, 
Might aiblins waur't thee for a brattle ; 
But sax Scotch miles thou try't their mettle. 

An' gart them whaizle : 
Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle 

O' saugh or hazel. 



I02 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Thou was a noble fittie-lan', 

As e'er in tug or tow was drawn ! 

Aft thee an' I, in aught hours gaun, 

In guid March-weather, 
Hae turn'd sax rood beside our han', 

For days thegither. 

Thou never braindg't, an' fetch't, an' fliskit, 
But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit, 
An' spread abreed thy weel-fill'd briskit, 

Wi' pith an' pow'r, 
Till spritty knowes wad rair't and riskit, 

An' slypet owre. 

When frosts lay lang, an' snaws were deep, 
An' threaten'd labour back to keep, 
I gied thy cog a wee-bit heap 

Aboon the timmer ; 
I ken'd my Maggie wad na sleep 

For that, or simmer. 

In cart or car thou never reestit : 

The steyest brae thou wad hae fac't it ; 

Thou never lap, an' sten't, and breastit. 

Then stood to blaw ; 
But just thy step a wee thing hastit, 

Thou snoov't awa. 

My pleugh is now thy bairn-time a' : 
Four gallant brutes as e'er did draw ; 
Forbye sax mae, I've sell't awa. 

That thou hast nurst : 



SELECT FOE MS OF ROBERT BURNS. \0\ 

They drew me thretteen pund an' twa, 
The vera warst. 

Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought, 

An' wi' the weary warl' fought ! 

An' monie an anxious day, I thought 

We wad be beat ! 
Yet here to crazy age we're brought, 

Wi' something yet. 

And think na, my auld, trusty servan', 
That now perhaps thou's less deservin, 
An' thy auld days may end in starvin, 

For my last fou, 
A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane 

Laid by for you. 

We've worn to crazy years thegither ; 
We'll toyte about wi' ane anither ; 
Wi' tentie care I'll flit thy tether 

To some hain'd rig, 
Whare ye may nobly rax your leather, 

Wi' sma' fatigue. 



A BARD'S EPITAPH. 

Is there a whim-inspired fool 
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, 
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool, 
Let him draw near ; 



I04 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

And owre this grassy heap sing dool, 
And drap a tear. 

Is there a Bard of rustic song, 

Who, noteless, steals the crowds among, 

That weekly this area throng, 

O, pass not by ! 
But, with a frater-feeling strong, 

Here heave a sigh. 

Is there a man whose judgment clear, 
Can others teach the course to steer. 
Yet runs, himself, life's mad career. 

Wild as the wave ; 
Here pause — and, thro' the starting tear. 

Survey this grave. 

The poor inhabitant below 

Was quick to learn and wise to know, 

And keenly felt the friendly glow, 

And softer flame, 
But thoughtless follies laid him low. 

And stain'd his name ! 

Reader, attend — whether thy soul 
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole. 
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole, 

In low pursuit ; 
Know, prudent, cautious self-control 

Is wisdom's root. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. IO5 



THE TWA DOGS. 

A TALE. 

'TwAS in that place o' Scotland's isle, 
That bears the name o' Auld King Coil, 
Upon a bonnie day in June, 
When wearin thro' the afternoon, 
Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame, 
Forgather'd ance upon a time. 

The first I'll name, they ca'd him Caesar, 
Was keepit for his Honour's pleasure : 
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs, 
Shew'd he was nane o' Scotland's dogs ; 
But whalpit some place far abroad, 
Whare sailors gang to fish for Cod. 

His locked, letter'd, braw brass collar, 
Shew'd him the gentleman and scholar ; 
But tho' he was o' high degree. 
The fient a pride, nae pride had he ; 
But wad hae spent an hour caressin, 
Ev'n wi' a tinkler-gipsey's messin. 
At kirk or market, mill or smiddie, 
Nae tawted tyke, tho' e'er sae duddie. 
But he wad stan't, as glad to see him. 
An' stroan't on stanes and hillocks wi' him. 

The tither was a ploughman's collie, 
A rhyming, ranting, raving billie, 
Wha for his friend an' comrade had him, 



I06 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

An' in his freaks had Luath ca'd him, 

After some dog in Highland sang, 

Was made lang syne, — Lord knows how lang. 

He was a gash an' faithfu' tyke. 
As ever lap a sheugh or dike. 
His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face. 
Ay gat him friends in ilka place ; 
His breast was white, his toiizie back 
Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black ; 
His gawcie tail, wi' upward cml. 
Hung owre his hurdles wi' a swirl. 

Nae doubt but they were fain o' ither. 
An' unco pack an' thick thegither ; 
Wi' social nose whyles snuff'd and snowkit ; 
Whyles mice and moudieworts they howkit ; 
Whyles scour'd awa in lang excursion, 
An' worry'd ither in diversion ; 
Until wi' dafiin weary grown. 
Upon a knowe they sat them clown. 
An' there began a lang digression 
About the lords o' the creation. 

C^SAR. 

I've aften wonder'd, honest Luath, 
What sort o' life poor dogs like you have ; 
An' when the gentry's life I saw. 
What way poor bodies liv'd ava. 

Our Laird gets in his racked rents, 
His coals, his kain, an' a' his stents: 
He rises when he likes himsel ; 
His flunkies answer at the bell ; 



SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. lO/ 

He ca's his coach ; he ca's his horse ; 
He draws a bonnie, silken purse 
As lang's my tail, whare thro' the steeks, 
The yellow letter'd Geordie keeks. 

Frae morn to e'en, it's nought but toiling, 
At baking, roasting, frying, boiling ; 
An' tho' the gentry first are stechin. 
Yet ev'n the ha' folk fill their pechan, 
Wi' sauce, ragouts, and such like trashtrie, 
That's little short o' downright wastrie. 
Our whipper-in, wee blastit vvonner. 
Poor worthless elf, it eats a dinner, 
Better than ony tenant man 
His Honour has in a' the Ian : 
An' what poor cot-folk pit their painch in, 
I own it's past my comprehension. 

LUATH. 

Trowth, Caesar, whyles they're fash't eneugh : 
A cotter howkin in a sheugh, 
Wi' dirty stanes biggin a dyke, 
Baring a quarry, and siclike, 
Himsel, a wife, he thus sustains, 
A sm3^trie o' wee duddie weans. 
An' nought but his han'-darg, to keep 
Them right an' tight in thack an' rape. 

An' when they meet wi' sair disasters, 
Like loss o' health, or want o' masters. 
Ye maist wad think, a wee touch langer. 
An' they maun starve o' cauld and hunger ; 
But, how it comes, I never kend yet, 



I08 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

They're maistly wonderfu' contented ; 
An' buirdly chiels, an clever hizzies, 
Are bred in sic a way as this is. 

C/ESAR. 

But then to see how ye're negleckit, 
How huff'd, an' cuff'd, an' disrespeckit ! 
Lord, man, our gentry care as little 
For delvers, ditchers, an' sic cattle, 
They gang as saucy by poor folk, 
As I wad by a stinking brock. 

I've notic'd, on our Laird's court-day, 
An' mony a time my heart's been wae, 
Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash, 
How they maun thole a factor's snash : 
He'll stamp an' threaten, curse an' swear. 
He'll apprehend them, poind their gear ; 
While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble, 
An' hear it a', an' fear an' tremble ! 
I see how folk live that hae riches ; 
But surely poor folk maun be wretches. 

LUATH. 

They're no sae wretched's ane wad think 
Tho' constantly on poortith's brink : 
They're sae accustom'd wi' the sight. 
The view o't gies them little fright. 

Then chance an' fortune are sae guided, 
They're ay in less or mair provided ; 
An' tho' fatigu'd wi' close employment, 
A blink o' rest's a sweet enjoyment. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. IO9 

The dearest comfort o' their lives, 
Their grushie weans an' faithfu' wives : 
The prattHng things are just their pride, 
That sweetens a' their fire-side. 

An' whyles twalpennie worth o' nappy 
Can mak the bodies unco happy ; 
They lay aside their private cares. 
To mind the Kirk and State affairs ; 
They'll talk o' patronage an' priests, 
Wi' kindling fury i' their breasts. 
Or tell what new taxation's comin, 
An' ferlie at the folk in Lon'on. 

As bleak-fac'd Hallowmass returns, 
They get the jovial, ranting kirns, 
When rural life, o' ev'ry station, 
Unite in common recreation ; 
Love blinks, Wit slaps, an' social Mirth 
Forgets there's Care upo' the earth. 

That merry day the year begins, 
They bar the door on frosty win's ; 
The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream, 
An' sheds a heart-inspiring steam ; 
The luntin pipe, an' sneeshin mill. 
Are handed round wi' right guid will ; 
The cantie auld folks crackin crouse, 
The young anes ranting thro' the house, — 
My heart has been sae fain to see them. 
That I for joy hae barket wi' them. 

Still it's owre true that ye hae said, 
Sic game is now owre aften play'd. 
There's monie a creditable stock 



no SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

O' decent, honest, fawsont folk. 
Are riven out baith root an' branch, 
Some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench, 
Wha thinks to knit himsel the faster 
In favour wi' some gentle Master, 
Wha, aiblins, thrang a parliamentin, 
For Britain's guid his saul indentin — 

C/ESAR. 

Haith, lad, ye little ken about it ; 
For Britain's guid ! guid faith ! I doubt it. 
Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him, 
An' saying aye or no's they bid him : 
At operas an' plays parading. 
Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading : 
Or maybe, in a frolic daft, 
To Hague or Calais taks a waft. 
To make a tour, an' tak a whirl. 
To learn boii ton an' see the worl'. 

There, at Vienna or Versailles, 
He rives his father's auld entails ; 
Or by Madrid he taks the rout. 
To thrum guitars, an' fecht wi' nowt ; 
Or down Italian vista startles. 
Hunting amang groves o' myrtles : 
Then bouses drumly German water, 
To mak himsel look fair and fatter, 
An' clear the consequential sorrows, 
Love-gifts of Carnival Signoras. 
For Britain's guid ! for her destruction ! 
Wi' dissipation, feud, an' faction ! 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. Ill 

LUATH. 

Hech, man ! dear sirs ! is that the gate 
They waste sae mony a braw estate ? 
Are we sae foughten an' harass'd 
For gear to gang that gate at last ? 

O would they stay aback frae courts, 
An' please themsels wi' countra sports, 
It wad for ev'ry ane be better, 
The Laird, the Tenant, an' the Cotter ! 
For thae frank, rantin, ramblin billies, 
Fient haet o' them's ill-hearted fellows ; 
Except for breaking o' their timmer, 
Or speaking lightly o' their limmer, 
Or shootin o' a hare or moor-cock, 
The ne'er-a-bit they're ill to poor folk. 

But will ye tell me, Master Caesar, 
Sure great folk's life's a life o' pleasure ? 
Nae cauld nor hunger e'er can steer them, 
The vera thought o't need na fear them. 

CiESAR. 

Lord, man, were ye but whyles whare I am. 
The gentles ye wad ne'er envy 'em. 

It's true, they need na starve or sweat, 
Thro' winter's cauld, or simmer's heat; 
They've nae sair wark to craze their banes, 
An' fill auld age wi' grips an' granes : 
But human bodies are sic fools. 
For a' their colleges and schools. 
That when nae real ills perplex them. 
They mak enow themselves to vex them ; 



112 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

An' ay the less they hae to sturt them, 
In Uke proportion, less will hurt them. 

A country fellow at the pleugh, 
His acre's tilPd, he's right eneugh ; 
A country girl at her wheel, 
Her dizzen's done, she's unco weel : • 
But Gentlemen, an' Ladies warst, 
Wi' ev'n down want o' wark are curst. 
They loiter, lounging, lank, an' lazy ; 
Tho' deil haet ails them, yet uneasy : 
Their days insipid, dull, an' tasteless ; 
Their nights unquiet, lang, an' restless ; 

An' ev'n their sports, their balls an' races, 
Their galloping thro' public places. 
There's sic parade, sic pomp, an' art. 
The joy can scarcely reach the heart. 

The men cast out in party-matches, 
Then sowther a' in deep debauches. 
The ladies arm-in-arm in clusters, 
As great an' gracious a' as sisters ; 
But hear their absent thoughts o' ither. 
They're a' run deils an' jads thegither. 
Whyles, owre the wee bit cup an' platie, 
They sip the scandal-potion pretty ; 
Or lee-lang nights, wi' crabbit leuks. 
Pore ower the devil's pictur'd beuks ; 
Stake on a chance a farmer's stackyard, 
An' cheat like ony unhang'd blackguard. 
There's some exceptions, man an' woman; 
But this is Gentry's life in common. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I 13 

By this, the sun was out o' sight, 
An' darker gloamin brought the night: 
The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone, 
The kye stood rowtin i' the loan ; 
When up they gat, an' shook their lugs, 
Rejoic'd they were na incn, but dogs ; 
An' each took aff his several way, 
Resolv'd to meet some ither day. 



TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, 

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, 1 786. 

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, 
Thou's met me in an evil hour ; 
For I maun crush amang the stoure 

Thy slender stem. 
To spare thee now is past my powV, 

Thou bonnie gem. 

Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet, 
The bonnie Lark, companion meet ! 
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet ! 

Wi' spreckl'd breast, 
When upward-springing, blythe, to greet 

The purpling east. 

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 
Upon thy early, humble birth ; 



I 14 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 

Amid the storm, 

Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth 
Thy tender form. 

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield, 
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield, 
But thou, beneath the random bield 

O' clod or stane, 
Adorns the histie stibble-field. 

Unseen, alane. 

There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread, 
Thou lifts thy unassuming head 

In humble guise ; 
But now the share uptears thy bed. 

And low thou lies ! 

Such is the fate of artless Maid, 
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade ! 
By love's simplicity betray'd. 

And guileless trust, 
Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid 

Low i' the dust. 

Such is the fate of simple Bard, 

On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd ! 

Unskilful he to note the card 

Of prudent lore. 
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 

And whelm him o'er ! 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. II5 

Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n, 
Who long with wants and woes has striv'n, 
By human pride or cunning driv'n 

To mis'ry's brink, 
Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n, 

He, ruin'd, sink ! 

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate. 
That fate is thine — no distant date ; 
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, 

Full on thy bloom, 
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, 

Shall be thy doom ! 



TO A LOUSE, 

ON SEEING ONE ON A LADY'S BONNET, AT CHURCH. 

Ha ! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie ! 
Your impudence protects you sairly : 
I canna say but ye strunt rarely, 

Owre gauze and lace ; 
Tho' faith, I fear ye dine but sparely 

On sic a place. 

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner. 
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner, 
How dare ye set your fit upon her, 

Sae fine a lady ! 
Gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner 

On some poor body. 



Il6 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Swith, in some beggar's haffet squattle, 

Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle ; 

There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle 

In shoals and nations ; 
Whare horn nor bane ne'er dare unsettle 

Your thick plantations. 

Now hand ye there, ye're out o' sight, 
Below the fatt'rels, snug an' tight; 
Na, faith ye yet ! ye'll no be right 

Till ye've got on it, 
The vera tapmost, tow 'ring height 

O' Miss's bonnet. 

My sooth ! right bauld ye set your nose out, 
As plump and gray as onie grozet ; 

for some rank, mercurial rozet, 

Or fell, red smeddum, 
I'd gie you sic a hearty doze o't. 

Wad dress your droddum ! 

1 wad na been surpris'd to spy 
You on an auld wife's flainen toy ; 
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy, 

On's wyliecoat ; 
But Miss's fine Lunardi ! fie. 

How daur ye do't ? 

O, Jenny, dinna toss your head, 
An' set your beauties a' abread ! 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. II7 

Ye little ken what cursed speed 

The blastie's makin ! 
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread, 

Are notice takin ! 

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us 
To see oursels as others see us ! 
It wad frae monie a blunder free us 

And foolish notion : 
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, 

And ev'n devotion ! 



EPISTLE TO A YOUNG FRIEND. 

MAY, 1786. 

I LANG hae thought, my youthfu' friend, 

A something to have sent you, 
Tho' it should serve nae ither end 

Than just a kind memento ; 
But how the subject theme may gang, 

Let time and chance determine ; 
Perhaps, it may turn out a sang, 

Perhaps, turn out a sermon. 

Ye'll try the world soon, my lad, 
And, Andrew dear, believe me, 

Ye'll find mankind an unco squad, 
And muckle they may grieve ye : 



Il8 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

For care and trouble set your thought, 
Ev'n when your end's attained ; 

And a' your views may come to nought, 
Where ev'ry nerve is strained. 

I'll no say, men are villains a' ; 

The real, harden 'd wicked, 
Wha hae nae check but human law. 

Are to a few restricked : 
But Och ! mankind are unco weak. 

An' little to be trusted ; 
If self the wavering balance shake, 

It's rarely right adjusted ! 

Yet they wha fa' in fortune's strife. 

Their fate we should na censure, 
For still th' important end of life 

They equally may answer ; 
A man mav hae an honest heart, 

Tho' poortith hourly stare him ; 
A man may tak a neebor's part, 

Yet hae nae cash to spare him. 

Aye, free, aff han' your story tell. 

When wi' a bosom crony ; 
But still keep something to yoursel 

Ye scarcely tell to ony ; 
Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can 

Frae critical dissection ; 
But keek thro' ev'ry other man, 

Wi' sharpen'd, sly inspection. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I I9 

The sacred lowe o' weel-plac'd love, 

Luxuriantly indulge it ; 
But never tempt th' illicit rove, 

Tho' naething should divulge it ; 
I wave the quantum o' the sin, 

The hazard o' concealing ; 
But Och ! it hardens a' within, 

And petrifies the feeling ! 

To catch dame Fortune's golden smile 

Assiduous wait upon her ; 
And gather gear by ev'ry wile 
That's justify'd by honour; 
V Not for to hide it in a hedge, 
7y Not for a train attendant ; 

/ But for the glorious privilege 
Of being independent. 

The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip, 

To hand the wretch in order ; 
But where ye feel your honour grip. 

Let that aye be your border : 
Its slightest touches, instant pause — 

Debar a' side pretences ; 
And resolutely keep its laws. 

Uncaring consequences. 

The great Creator to revere. 

Must sure become the creature ; 
But still the preaching cant forbear, 

And ev'n the rigid feature ; 



I20 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

Yet ne'er with wits profane to range, 

Be complaisance extended ; 
An Atheist laugh's a poor exchange 

For Deity offended ! 

When ranting round in pleasure's ring, 

Religion may be blinded ; 
Or if she gie a random sting, 

It may be little minded ; 
But when on life we're tempest-driv'n, 

A conscience but a canker — 
A correspondence fix'd wi' Heaven 

Is sure a noble anchor ! 

Adieu, dear, amiable Youth ! 

Your heart can ne'er be wanting ! 
May prudence, fortitude, and truth, 

Erect your brow undaunting ! 
In ploughman phase, " God send you speed," 

Still daily to grow wiser ; 
And may ye better reck the rede. 

Than ever did th' Adviser ! 



SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 121 



' A DREAM. 

Thoughts, words, and deeds, the Statute blames with reason; 
But surely Dreams were ne'er indicted Treason. 

Oa reading, in the public papers, the Laureate's Ode, with the other parade 
of June 4, 17S6, the author was no sooner dropt asleep, than he imagined himself 
transported to the Birth-day Levee ; and ia his dreaming fancy, made the follow- 
ing Address. 

GuiD-MoRNiN to your Majesty ! 

May heaven augment your blisses, 
On ev'ry new birth-day ye see ; 

A humble Bardie wishes ! 
My Bardship here, at your Levee, 

On sic a day as this is, 
Is sure an uncouth sight to see, 

Amang thae birth-day dresses 
Sae fine this day. 

I see ye're complimented thrang, 
By mony a lord an' lady ; 
"God save the King ! " 's a cuckoo sang 
That's unco easy said ay ; 
The Poets, too, a venal gang, 

Wi' rhymes weel-turn'd and ready, 
Wad gar you trow ye ne'er do wrang, 
But ay unerring steady. 
On sic a day. 

For me ! before a Monarch's face, 
Ev'n there I winna flatter ; 



122 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

For neither pension, post, nor place, 
Am I your humble debtor : 

So, nae reflection on your Grace, 
Your Kingship to bespatter ; 

There's monie waur been o' the Race, 
And aiblins ane been better 

Than You this day. 

' Tis very true, my sovereign King, 
My skill may weel be doubted : 
But Facts are cheels that winna ding. 

An' downa be disputed : 
Your Royal nest, beneath your wing, 

Is e'en right reft an' clouted, 
And now the third part of the string, 
An' less, will gang about it 
Than did ae day. 

Far be't frae me that I aspire 

To blame your legislation. 
Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire, 

To rule this mighty nation ; 
But, faith ! I muckle doubt, my Sire, 

Ye've trusted Ministration 
To chaps, wha, in a barn or byre. 

Wad better fill'd their station 

Than courts yon day. 

And now ye've gien auld Britain peace 
Her broken shins to plaister ; 

Your sair taxation does her fleece 
Till she has scarce a tester ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I 23 

For me, thank God, my life's a lease 

Nae bargain wearing faster, 
Or, faith ! I fear that with the geese, 

I shortly boost to pasture 

r the craft some day. 

I'm no mistrusting Willie Pitt, 

When taxes he enlarges, 
(An' Will's a true guid fallow's get, 

A name not envy spairges,) 
That he intends to pay your debt, 

An' lessen a' your charges ; 
But, God's sake ! let nae saving-fit 

Abridge your bonnie barges 

An' boats this day. 

Adieu, my Liege ! may freedom geek 

Beneath your high protection ; 
An' may ye rax Corruption's neck, 

And gie her for dissection ! 
But since I'm here, I'll no neglect. 

In loyal, true affection. 
To pay your Queen, with due respect, 

My fealty an' subjection 

This great birth-day. 

Hail, Majesty most Excellent ! 

While nobles strive to please Ye, 
Will Ye accept a compliment 

A simple Poet gies Ye .'* 
Thae bonny bairntime Heav'n has lent. 

Still higher may they heeze Ye 



124 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

In bliss, till Fate some day is sent, 
For ever to release Ye 

Frae care that day. 

For you, young Potentate o' Wales, 

I tell your Highness fairly, 
Down Pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sails 

I'm tauld ye're driving rarely ; 
But some day ye may gnaw your nails, 

An' curse your folly sairly, 
That e'er ye brak Diana's pales, 

Or rattl'd dice wi' Charlie 
By night or day. 

Yet aft a ragged cowt's been known 

To mak a noble aiver ; 
Sae, ye may doucely fill a Throne, 

For a' their clish-ma-claver : 
There, Him at Agincourt wha shone, 

Few better were or braver ; 
And yet, wi' funny, queer Sir John, 

He was an unco shaver 

For monie a day. 

For you, right rev'rend Osnaburg, 

Name sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter, 
Altho' a ribban at your lug 

Wad been a dress completer : 
As ye disown yon paughty dog 

That bears the Keys of Peter, 
Then, swith ! an' get a wife to hug. 

Or, troth ! ye'll stain the Mitre 
Some luckless day. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I 25 

Young, royal Tarry Breeks, I learn, 

Ye've lately come athwart her ; 
A glorious galley, stem and stern, 

Weel rigg'd for Venus' barter ; 
But first hang out, that she'll discern 

Your hymeneal charter, 
Then heave aboard your grapple airn. 

An', large upon her quarter. 

Come full that day. 

Ye, lastly, bonnie blossoms a', 

Ye royal Lasses dainty, 
Heav'n mak you guid as weel as braw, 

An' gie you lads a-plenty : 
But sneer na British boys awa'. 

For Kings are unco scant ay; 
An' German Gentles are but sma'. 

They're better just than want ay 
On onie day. 

God bless you a' ! consider now 

Ye're unco muckle dautet ; 
But, ere the course o' life be through, 

It may be bitter sautet : 
An' I hae seen their coggie fou. 

That yet hae tarrow't at it ; 
But or the day was done, I trow. 
The laggen they hae clautet 

Fu' clean that day. 



126 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



THE LAMENT, 

OCCASIONED BY THE UNFORTUNATE ISSUE OF A FRIEND'S AMOUR. 



Alas', how oft does Goodjiess wound itself, 
And sweet Affection prove the spri7ig of woe! 

O THOU pale Orb, that silent shines. 

While care-untroubled mortals sleep ! 
Thou seest a wretch that inly pines, 

And wanders here to wail and weep ! 
With woe I nightly vigils keep. 

Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam ; 
And mourn, in lamentation deep. 

How life and love are all a dream. 



I joyless view thy rays adorn 

The faintly marked, distant hill : 
I joyless view thy trembling horn, 

Reflected in the gurgling rill : 
My fondly-fluttering heart, be still ! 

Thou busy pow'r, Remembrance, cease ! 
Ah ! must the agonizing thrill 

For ever bar returning peace ! 

No idly-feign'd poetic pains. 

My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim ; 

No shepherd's pipe — Arcadian strains ; 
No fabled tortures, quaint and tame : 



Home. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 12/ 

The plighted faith ; the mutual flame ; 

The oft attested Pow'rs above ; 
The promis'd father's tender name : 

These were the pledges of my love ! 

Encircled in her clasping arms, 

How have the raptur'd moments flown ! 
How have I wish'd for fortune's charms, 

For her dear sake, and hers alone ! 
And must I think it ! is she gone, 

My secret heart's exulting boast ? 
And does she heedless hear my groan ? 

And is she ever, ever lost ? 

Oh ! can she hear so base a heart, 

So lost to honour, lost to truth, 
As from the fondest lover part. 

The plighted husband of her youth ! 
Alas ! life's path may be unsmooth ! 

Her way may lie thro' rough distress ! 
Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe, 

Her sorrows share, and make them less ? 

Ye winged hours that o'er us past, 

Enraptur'd more, the more enjoy'd. 
Your dear remembrance in my breast, 

My fondly-treasur'd thoughts employ'd. 
That breast, how dreary now, and void, 

For her too scanty once of room ! 
Ev'n ev'ry ray of hope destroy'd, 

And not a wish to gild the gloom ! 



128 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

The morn that warns th' approaching day, 

Awakes me up to toil and woe : 
I see the hours in long array, 

That I must suffer, lingering, slow. 
Full many a pang, and many a throe, 

Keen recollection's direful train, 
Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low, 

Shall kiss the distant, western main. 

And when my nightly couch I try, 

Sore-harass'd out with care and grief, 
My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye. 

Keep watchings with the nightly thief : 
Or if I slumber. Fancy, chief. 

Reigns, haggard-wild, in sore affright : 
Ev'n day, all-bitter brings relief. 

From such a horror-breathing night. 

O ! thou bright Queen, who o'er th' expanse 

Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway! 
Oft hast thy silent-marking glance 

Observ'd us, fondly-wand'ring, stray ! 
The time, unheeded, sped away. 

While love's luxurious pulse beat high. 
Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray. 

To mark the mutual-kindling eye. 

O ! scenes in strong remembrance set ! 

Scenes, never, never to return ! 
Scenes, if in stupor I forget. 

Again I feel, again I burn ! 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 29 

From ev'ry joy and pleasure torn, 
Life's weary vale Til wander thro' ; 

And hopeless, comfortless, I'll mourn 
A faithless woman's broken vow. 



A PRAYER — O THOU DREAD POWER. 

Lying at a reverend friend's house one night, the author left the following verses 
in the room where lie slept. 

O Thou dread Power, who reign'st above, 

I know Thou wilt me hear ; 
When for this scene of peace and love, 

I make my prayer sincere. 

The hoary Sire — the mortal stroke. 

Long, long, be pleas'd to spare ; 
To bless his little filial flock, 

And show what good men are. 

She, who her loving offspring eyes 

With tender hopes and fears, 
O, bless her with a mother's joys. 

But spare a mother's tears ! 

Their hope, their stay, their darling youth, 

In manhood's dawning blush ; 
Bless him, thou God of love and truth. 

Up to a parent's wish. 



130 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

The beauteous, seraph sister-band, 

With earnest tears I pray, 
Thou know'st the snares on ev'ry hand, 

Guide Thou their steps alway. 

When soon or late they reach that coast. 
O'er life's rough ocean driven, 

May they rejoice, no wand'rer lost, 
A family in Heaven ! 



FAREWELL TO THE BANKS OF AYR. 

Tune — " Roslin CastleP 

The gloomy night is gath'ring fast, 
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast, 
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain, 
I see it driving o'er the plain ; 
The hunter now has feft the moor. 
The scattered coveys meet secure, 
While here I wander, prest with care, 
Along the lonely banks of Ayr. 

The Autumn mourns her rip'ning corn 
By early Winter's ravage torn ; 
Across her placid, azure sky, 
She sees the scowling tempest fly : 
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave, 
I think upon the stormy wave. 



SELECT rOEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 13I 

Where many a danger I must dare, 
Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr. 

'Tis not the surging billow's roar, 
'Tis not that fatal, deadly shore ; 
Tho' death in ev'ry shape appear. 
The wretched have no more to fear : 
But round my heart the ties are bound, 
That heart transpierc'd with many a wound : 
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear. 
To leave the bonnie banks of Ayr. 

Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales. 
Her heathy moors and winding vales ; 
The scenes where wretched fancy roves. 
Pursuing past, unhappy loves ! 
Farewell, my friends ! Farewell, my foes ! 
My peace with these, my love with those — 
The bursting tears my heart declare. 
Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr. 



WILL YE GO TO THE INDIES, MY MARY? 

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 

And leave auld Scotia's shore .? 
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 

Across th' Atlantic's roar .? 



132 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

O sweet grows the lime and the orange, 

And the apple on the pine ; 
But a' the charms o' the Indies 

Can ndver equal thine. 

I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary, 
I hae sworn by the Heavens to be true ; 

And sae may the Heavens forget me. 
When I forget my vow ! 

O plight me your faith, my Mary, 
And plight me your lily-white hand ; 

O plight me your faith, my Mary, 
Before I leave Scotia's strand. 

We hae plighted our troth, my Mary, 

In mutual affection to join. 
And curst be the cause that shall part us 1 

The hour, and the moment o' time ! 



PRAYER FOR MARY. 

Tune — " Blue Botuiets:'' 

Powers celestial, whose protection 
Ever guards the virtuous fair. 

While in distant climes I wander. 
Let my Mary be your care : 

Let her form sae fair and faultless. 
Fair and faultless as your own ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURKS. 1 33 

Let my Mary's kindred spirit 

Draw your choicest intluence down. 

Make the gales you waft around her 

Soft and peaceful as her breast ; 
Breathing in the breeze that fans her, 

Soothe her bosom into rest : 
Guardian angels, O protect her, 

When in distant lands I roam ; 
To realms unknown while fate exiles me, 

Make her bosom still my home. 



MY HIGHLAND LASSIE, O. 

Tune — " The deuks dang dcr my daddy." 

Nae gentle dames, tho' e'er sae fair, 
Shall ever be my Muse's care ; 
Their titles a' are empty show ; 
Gie me my Highland lassie, O. 

CHORUS. 

Within the glen sae bushy, O, 
Aboon the plain sae rusliy, O, 
I set me down wi' right good will. 
To sing my Highland lassie, O. 

Oh, were yon hills and valleys mine. 
Yon palace and yon gardens fine ! 



134 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

The world then the love should know 
I bear my Highland lassie, O. 
Within the glen, &c. 

But fickle fortune frowns on me, 
And I maun cross the raging sea ; 
But while my crimson currents flow 
I'll love my Highland lassie, O. 
Within the glen, &c. 

Altho' thro' foreign climes I range, 
I know her heart will never change, 
For her bosom burns with honour's glow, 
My faithful Highland lassie, O. 
Within the glen, &c. 

For her I'll dare the billow's roar, 
For her I'll trace a distant shore. 
That Indian wealth may lustre throw 
Around my Highland lassie, O. 
Within the glen, &:c. 

She has my heart, she has my hand. 
By sacred truth and honour's band ! 
Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low, 
I'm thine, my Highland lassie, O. 

Fareweel the glen sae bushy, O ! 
Fareweel the plain sae rushy, O ! 
To other lands I now must go, 
To sing my Highland la§sie, O ! 



SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. I 35 



LINES ON MEETING WITH LORD DAER. 

This wot ye all whom it concerns, 
I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns, 

October twenty-third, 
A ne'er to be forgotten day, 
Sae far I sprachled up the brae, 

I dinner'd wi' a Lord. 

I've been at drucken writers' feasts. 
Nay, been bitch-fou 'mang godly priests, 

Wi' rev'rence be it spoken ; 
I've even join'd the honour'd jorum. 
When mighty Squireships of the quorum 

Their hydra drouth did sloken. 

But wi' a Lord — stand out my shin ; 
A Lord — a Peer — an Earl's son, 

Up higher yet, my bonnet ! 
An sic a Lord — lang Scotch ells twa, 
Our Peerage he o'erlooks them a'. 

As I look o'er my sonnet. 

But, O for Hogarth's magic pow'r ! 
To show Sir Bardie's willyart glow'r. 

And how he star'd and stammer'd. 
When goavan, as if led wi' b ranks. 
An' stumpin on his ploughman shanks. 

He in the parlour hammer'd. 



136 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

I sidling sheltered in a nook, 
An' at his Lordship steal't a look, 

Like some portentous omen ; 
Except good sense and social glee, 
An' (what surprised me) modesty, 

I marked nought uncommon. 

I watch'd the symptoms o' the Great, 
The gentle pride, the lordly state. 

The arrogant assuming ; 
The fient a pride, nae pride had he, 
Nor sauce, nor state that I could see, 

Mair than an honest ploughman. 

Then from his Lordship I shall learn, 
Henceforth to meet with unconcern 

One rank as weel's another ; 
Nae honest worthy man need care 
To meet with noble youthful Daer, 

For he but meets a brother. 



THE LASS O' BALLOCHMYLE. 

Tune — " Ettrick Banks P 

'TwAS even — the dewy fields were green. 
On every blade the pearls hang ; 

The zephyrs wanton 'd round the bean. 
And bore its fragrant sweets alang : 

In every glen the mavis sang, 

All nature listening seem'd the while : 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 3/ 

Except where green-wood echoes rang, 
Amang the braes o' Ballochmyle. 

With careless step I onward stray'd, 

My heart rejoic'd in nature's joy, 
When musing in a lonely glade, 

A maiden fair I chanc'd to spy ; 
Her look was like the morning's eye, 

Her hair like nature's vernal smile. 
Perfection whisper'd passing by, 

" Behold the lass o' Ballochmyle ! " 

Fair is the morn in flowery May, 

And sweet is night in Autumn mild. 
When roving thro' the garden gay. 

Or wandering in a lonely wild : 
But Woman, Nature's darling child ! 

There all her charms she does compile ; 
Ev'n there her other w^orks are foil'd 

By the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle. 

O, had she been a country maid, 

And I the happy country swain, 
Tho' shelter'd in the lowest shed 

That ever rose on Scotland's plain ! 
Thro' weary winter's wind and rain, 

With joy, with rapture, I would toil ; 
And nightly to my bosom strain 

The bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle. 

Then pride might climb the slipp'ry steep, 
Where fame and honours lofty shine ; 



138 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

And thirst of gold might tempt the deep. 
Or downward seek the Indian mine ; 

Give me the cot below the pine, 
To tend the flocks or till the soil, 

And ev'ry day have joys divine, 

With the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle. 



THE BRAES O' BALLOCHMYLE. 

Tune — '■'■Miss Forbes^ s Farewell to Banff.'''' 

The Catrine woods were yellow seen. 

The flowers decay'd on Catrine lee, 
Nae lav'rock sang on hillock green, 

But nature sicken'd on the ee. 
Thro' faded groves Maria sang, 

Hersel in beauty's bloom the whyle. 
And aye the wild-wood echoes rang, 

Fareweel the braes o' Ballochmyle ! 

Low in your wintry beds, ye flowers, 

Again ye'll flourish fresh and fair ; 
Ye birdies dumb, in with'ring bowers, 

Again ye'll charm the vocal air. 
But here, alas ! for me nae mair 

Shall birdie charm, or floweret smile ; 
Fareweel the bonnie banks of Ayr, 

Fareweel, fareweel, sweet Ballochmyle ! 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 39 



1787. 
ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH. 

Edina ! Scotia's darling seat ! 

All hail thy palaces and tow'rs, 
Where once beneath a monarch's feet 

Sat Legislation's sov'reign pow'rs ! 
From marking wildly scatter'd flow'rs, 

As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, 
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours, 

I shelter in thy honour'd shade. 

Here Wealth still swells the golden tide, 

As busy Trade his labours plies ; 
There Architecture's noble pride 

Bids elegance and splendour rise ; 
Here Justice, from her native skies, 

Hiirh wields her balance and her rod ; 
There Learning with his eagle eyes, 

Seeks Science in her coy abode. 

Thy sons, Edina, social, kind. 

With open arms the stranger hail ; 

Their views enlarg'd, their lib'ral mind, 
Above the narrow, rural vale ; 

Attentive still to Sorrow's wail. 
Or modest Merit's silent claim : 



I40 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

And never may their sources fail ! 
And never Envy blot their name ! 

Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn, 

Gay as the gilded summer sky, 
Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn. 

Dear as the raptur'd thrill of joy ! 
Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye, 

Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine ; 
I see the Sire of Love on high, 

And own his work indeed divine ! 

There watching high the least alarms. 

Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar ; 
Like some bold vet'ran, gray in arms, 

And mark'd with many a seam)- scar : 
The pond'rous wall and massy bar, 

Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock, 
Have oft withstood assailing war. 

And oft repell'd th' invader's shock. 

With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears, 

I view that noble, stately dome. 
Where Scotia's kings of other years, 

Fam'd heroes, had their royal home : 
Alas, how chang'd the times to come ! 

Their royal name low in the dust ! 
Their hapless race wild-wand'ring roam ! 

Tho' rigid law cries out, 'twas just ! 

Wild beats my heart, to trace your steps, 
Whose ancestors, in days of yore, 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I4I 

Thro' hostile ranks and ruin'd gaps 

Old Scotia's bloody lion bore 
Ev'n I who sing in rustic lore, 

Haply my sires have left their shed, 
And fac'd grim Danger's loudest roar. 

Bold-following where your fathers led ! 

Edina ! Scotia's darling seat ! 

All hail thy palaces and tow'rs, 
Where once beneath a monarch's feet 

Sat Legislation's sov'reign pow'rs ! 
From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs. 

As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd. 
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours, 

I shelter in thy honoured shade. 



EPIGRAM AT ROSLIN INN. 

My blessing on ye, sonsie wife, 

I ne'er was here before : 
Ye've wealth o' gear for spoon and knife — 

Heart could not wish for more. 
Heaven keep you clear o' sturt and strife, 

Till far ayont fourscore. 
And while I toddle on thro' life, 

I'll ne'er gae by your door! 



142 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



EPISTLE TO MRS. SCOTT. 

GUIDWIFE OF WAUCHOPE-HOUSE, ROXBURGSHIRE. 
GUIDWIFE, 

I MIND it weel, in early date, 

When I was beardless, young and blate, 

An' first could thresh the barn. 
Or haud a yokin at the pleugh, 
An' tho' forfoughten sair eneugh, 

Yet unco proud to learn : 
When first amang the yellow corn 

A man I reckon'd was. 
And wi' the lave ilk merry morn 
Could rank my rig and lass. 
Still shearing, and clearing 

The tither stooked raw, 
Wi' claivers, an haivers, 
Wearing the day awa. 

Ev'n then a wish, (I mind its power,) 
A wish that to my latest hour 

Shall strongly heave my breast ; 
That I for poor auld Scotland's sake, 
Some usefu' plan, or beuk could make. 

Or sing a sang at least. 
The rough bur-thistle, spreading wide 

Amang the bearded bear, 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I43 

I turn'd the weeder-clips aside, 
An' spar'd the symbol dear : 
No nation, no station. 

My envy e'er could raise ; 
A Scot still, but blot still, 
I knew nae higher praise. 

But still the elements o' sang 

In formless jumble, right an' wrang, 

Wild floated in my brain ; 
Till on that har'st I said before. 
My partner in the merry core, 

She rous'd the forming strain : 
I see her yet, the sonsie quean, 

That lighted up my jingle, 
Her witching smile, her pauky een, 
That gart my heart-strings tingle ; 
I fired, inspired. 

At ev'ry kindling keek, 
But bashing, and dashing, 
I feared aye to speak. 

Health to the sex, ilk guid chiel says, 
Wi' merry dance in winter days, 

An' we to share in common : 
The gust o' joy, the balm of woe, 
The saul o' life, the heav'n below. 

Is rapture-giving woman. 
Ye surly sumphs, who hate the name, 

Be mindfu' o' your mither: 



144 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

She, honest woman, may think shame 
That ye're connected with her, 
Ye're wae men, ye're nae men, 
That slight the lovely dears ; 
To shame ye, disclaim ye. 
Ilk honest birkie swears. 

For you, no bred to barn or byre, 
Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre, 

Thanks to you for your line : 
The marled plaid ye kindly spare, 
By me should gratefully be ware ; 

'Twad please me to the nine. 
I'd be more vauntie o' my hap. 

Douce hingin' owre my curole, 
Than ony ermine ever lap. 
Or proud imperial purple. 

Farewell then, lang heal then, 

An' plenty be your fa' : 
May losses and crosses 
Ne'er at your hallan ca'. 



R. Burns. 



March, 1787. 



COME BOAT ME O'ER TO CHARLIE. 

Tune — "■O'er the water to Charlie P 

Come boat me o'er, come row me o'er. 

Come boat me o'er to Charlie ; 
I'll gie John Ross another bawbee. 

To boat me o'er to Charlie. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 45 

We'll o'er the water and o'er the sea, 
We'll o'er the water to Charlie ; 

Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go, 
And live or die wi' Charlie. 

I lo'e weel my Charlie's name, 

Tho' some there be abhor him : 
But O, to see auld Nick gaim hame, 

And Charlie's faes before him ! 

I swear and vow by moon and stars, 

And sun that shines so early, 
If I had twenty thousand lives, 

I'd die as aft for Charlie. 

We'll o'er the water and o'er the sea, 
We'll o'er the water to Charlie; 

Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go, 
And live or die wi' Charlie ! 



INSCRIPTION ON THE TOMBSTONE 

ERECTED BY BURNS TO THE MEMORY OF FERGUSSON. 

" Here lies Robert Fergussoft, Poet, 
Born September t,ih, 1751 — 
Died \6th October, 1774." 

No sculptur'd marble here, nor pompous lay, 
" No storied urn nor animated bust ; " 

This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way 
To pour her sorrows o'er her Poet's dust. 



146 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

She mourns, sweet tuneful youth, thy hapless fate, 
Tho' all the powers of song thy fancy fir'd. 

Yet Luxury and Wealth lay by in State, 

And thankless starv'd what they so much admir'u. 

This humble tribute with a tear he gives, 
A brother Bard, he can no more bestow : 

But dear to fame thy Song immortal lives, 
A nobler monument than Art can show. 



TO A LADY 

WHO WAS LOOKING UP THE TEXT DURING SERMON. 

Fair maid, you need not take the hint, 

Nor idle texts pursue : 
' Twas guilty sinners that he meant, 

Not A?igels such as you ! 



THE BIRKS OF ABERFELDY. 

CHORUS. 

Bonnie lassie, will ye go, will ye go, will ye go, 
Bonnie lassie, will ye go to the Birks of Aberfeldy ? 

Now simmer blinks on flowery braes, 
And o'er the crystal streamlet plays, 
Come let us spend the lightsome days 
In the Birks of Aberfeldy. 
Bonnie lassie, &c. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 47 

The little birdies blythely sing, 
While o'er their heads the hazels hing, 
Or lightly flit on wanton wing 
In the Birks of Aberfeldy. 
Bonnie lassie, &c. 

The braes ascend like lofty wa's, 
The foaming stream deep roaring fa's, 
O'erhung wi' fragrant spreading shaws, 
The Birks of Aberfeldy. 
Bonnie lassie, &c. 

The hoary cliffs are crown'd wi' flowers, 
White o'er the linns the burnie pours. 
And rising, weets wi' misty showers 
The Birks of Aberfeldy. 
Bonnie lassie, &:c. 

Let fortune's gifts at random flee. 
They ne'er shall draw a wish frae me. 
Supremely blest wi' love and thee, 
In the Birks of Aberfeldy. 
Bonnie lassie, &c. 



THE HUMBLE PETITION OF BRUAR WATER 
TO THE NOBLE DUKE OF ATHOLE. 

My Lord, I know your noble ear 

Woe ne'er assails in vain ; 
Embolden'd thus, I beg you'll hear 

Your humble slave complain, 



148 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

How saucy Phoebus' scorching beams, 

In flaming summer-pride, 
Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams, 

And drink my crystal tide. 

The lightly-jumpin glowrin trouts, 

That thro' my waters play, 
If, in their random, wanton spouts, 

They near the margin stray ; 
If, hapless chance ! they linger lang, 

I'm scorching up so shallow. 
They're left the whitening stanes amang, 

In gasping death to wallow. 

Last day I grat wi' spite and teen, 

As poet Burns came by. 
That to a bard I should be seen 

Wi' half my channel dry : 
A panegyric rhyme, I ween, 

Even as I was he shor'd me ; 
But had I in my glory been, 

He, kneeling, wad ador'd me. 

Here, foaming down the shelvy rocks, 

In twisting strength I rin ; 
There, high my boiling torrent smokes, 

Wild-roaring o'er a linn : 
Enjoying large each spring and well 

As Nature gave them me, 
I am, altho' I say't mysel. 

Worth gaun a mile to see. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 49 

Would then my noble master please 

To grant my highest wishes, 
He'll shade my banks wi' tow'ring trees. 

And bonnie spreading bushes. 
Delighted doubly then, my Lord, 

You'll wander on my banks. 
And listen monie a grateful bird, 

Return you tuneful thanks. 

The sober laverock, warbling wild, 

Shall to the skies aspire ; 
The gowdspink. Music's gayest child, 

Shall sweetly join the choir : 
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear, 

The mavis mild and mellow ; 
The robin pensive Autumn cheer. 

In all her locks of yellow. 

This, too, a covert shall ensure. 

To shield them from the storm ; 
And coward maukin sleep secure. 

Low in her grassy form : 
Here shall the shepherd make his seat, 

To weave his crown of flow'rs ; 
Or find a shelt'ring safe retreat. 

From prone-descending show'rs. 

And here, by sweet endearing stealth. 

Shall meet the loving pair. 
Despising worlds with all their wealth 

As empty, idle care : 



150 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

The flow'rs shall vie in all their charm 
The hour of heav'n to grace, 

And birks extend their fragrant arms, 
To screen the dear embrace. 

Here haply too, at vernal dawn. 

Some musing bard may stray. 
And eye the smoking, dewy lawn, 

And misty mountain, gray ; 
Or, by the reaper's nightly beam. 

Mild-chequering thro' the trees. 
Rave to my darkly-dashing stream, 

Hoarse-swelling on the breeze. 

Let lofty firs, and ashes cool, 

My lowly banks o'erspread. 
And view, deep-bending in the pool, 

Their shadows' wat'ry bed ! 
Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest 

My craggy cliffs adorn ; 
And, for the little songster's nest. 

The close embow'ring thorn. 

So may old Scotia's darling hope, 

Your little angel band. 
Spring, like their fathers, up to prop 

Their honour'd native land ! 
So may, thro' Albion's farthest ken, 

To social-flowing glasses 
The grace be — " Athole's honest men, 

And Athole's bonnie lasses ! " 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 151 



THE LOVELY LASS O' INVERNESS. 

The lovely lass o' Inverness, 

Nae joy nor pleasure can she see ; 
For e'en and morn she cries, "alas ! " 

And aye the saut tear blins her e'e : 
" Drumossie moor, Drumossie day, 

A waefu' day it was to me ; 
For there I lost my father dear. 

My father dear, and brethren three. 

Their winding sheet the bluidy clay. 

Their graves are growing green to see ; 
And by them lies the dearest lad 

That ever blest a woman's e'e ! 
Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord, 

A bluidy man I trow thou be ; 
For monie a heart thou hast made sair. 

That ne'er did wrang to thine or thee." 



CASTLE GORDON. 

Tune — " MoragP 

Streams that glide in orient plains. 
Never bound by winter's chains ! 
Glowing here on golden sands, 
There commix'd with foulest stains 



152 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

From Tyranny's empurpled hands : 
These, their richly-gleaming waves, 
I leave to tyrants and their slaves ; 
Give me the stream that sweetly laves 

The banks by Castle Gordon. 

Spicy forests, ever gay, 
Shading from the burning ray 

Hapless wretches sold to toil, 
Or the ruthless native's way. 

Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil : 
Woods that ever verdant wave, 
I leave the tyrant and the slave, 
Give me the groves that lofty brave 

The storms, by Castle Gordon. 

Wildly here without control, 
Nature reigns and rules the whole ; 

In that sober pensive mood, 
Dearest to the feeling soul. 

She plants the forest, pours the flood ; 
Life's poor day I'll musing rave, 
And find at night a sheltering cave, 
Where waters flow and wild woods wave. 

By bonnie Castle Gordon. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 53 



A ROSE-BUD BY MY EARLY WALK. 

Tune — 'T/:^ Shepherd's Wife:' 

A ROSE-BUD by my early walk, 
Adown a corn-enclosed bawk, 
Sae gently bent its thorny stalk, 

All on a dewy morning. 
Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled, 
In a' its crimson glory spread. 
And drooping rich the dewy head, 

It scents the early morning. 

Within the bush, her covert nest 

A little linnet fondly prest, 

The dew sat chilly on her breast 

Sae early in the morning. 
She soon shall see her tender brood, 
The pride, the pleasure o' the wood, 
Amang the fresh green leaves bedew'd. 

Awake the early morning. 

So thou, dear bird, young Jeany fair. 
On trembling string or vocal air. 
Shall sweetly pay the tender care 

That tents thy early morning. 
So thou, sweet Rose-bud, young and gay, 
Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day. 
And bless the parent's evening ray 

That watch'd thy early morning. 



154 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



BLYTHE WAS SHE. 

Tune — '•'■Andro and his cuttie gicti." 
CHORUS. 

Blythe, blythe and merry was she, 
Blythe was she but and ben : 

Blythe by the banks of Ern, 
And blythe in Glenturit glen. 

By Ochtertyre grows the aik, 

On Yarrow banks, the birken shaw ; 

But Phemie was a bonnier lass 
Than braes o' Yarrow ever saw. 
Blythe, &c. 

Her looks were like a flow'r jn May, 
Her smile was like a simmer morn ; 

She tripped by the banks of Ern 
As light's a bird upon a thorn. 
Blythe, «Scc. 

Her bonnie face it was as meek 
As onie lamb's upon a lea ; 

The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet 
As was the blink o' Phemie's e'e. 
Blythe, &c. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I 55 

The Highland hills I've wander'd wide, 
And o'er the Lowlands I have been ; 

But Phemie was the blythest lass 
That ever trod the dewy green. 
Blythe, &:c. 



BANKS OF DEVON. 

How pleasant the banks of the clear-winding Devon, 

With green-spreading bushes, and flowers blooming fair ! 
But the bonniest flower on the banks of the Devon 

Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr. 
Mild be the sun on this sweet blushing flower, 

In the gay rosy morn as it bathes in the dew ; 
And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower, 

That steals on the evening each leaf to renew ! 

O, spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes. 

With chill hoary wing as ye usher the dawn ; 
And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seizes 

The verdure and pride of the garden and lawn ! 
Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded lilies. 

And England triumphant display her proud rose ; 
A fairer than either adorns the green valleys 

Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows. 



156 SELECT rOEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



1788. 
I LOVE MY JEAN. 

Tune — "yl//5^ Admiral Gordon'' s Strathspey." 

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw, 

I dearly Hke the west, 
For there the bonnie lassie lives, 

The lassie I lo'e best : 
There wild woods grow, and rivers row, 

And monie a hill between ; 
But day and night my fancy's flight 

Is ever wi' my Jean. 

I see her in the dewy flowers, 

I see her sweet and fair : 
I hear her in the tunefu' birds, 

I hear her charm the air : 
There's not a bonnie flower that springs 

By fountain, shaw, or green ; 
There's not a bonnie bird that sings, 

But minds me o' my Jean. 



O, WERE I ON PARNASSUS' HILL! 

Tune — '■^ Afy Love is lost to meP 

O, WERE I on Parnassus' hill. 
Or had of Helicon my fill. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I 57 

That I might catch poetic skill, 

To sing how dear I love thee ! 
But Nith maun be my Muse's well, 
My Muse maun be thy bonnie sel ; 
On Corsincon I'll glowr and spell, 

And write how dear I love thee. 

Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay ! 
For a' the lee-lang simmer's day, 
I could na sing, I could na say, 

How much, how dear, I love thee. 
I see thee dancing o'er the green. 
Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean. 
Thy tempting looks, thy roguish een — 

By Heaven and Earth I love thee ! 

By night, by day, a-field, at hame. 

The thoughts o' thee my breast inflame ; 

And aye I muse and sing thy name — 

I only live to love thee. • 

Tho' I were doom'd to wander on, 
Beyond the sea, beyond the sun. 
Till my last weary sand was run ; 

Till then — and then I'd love thee. 



M'PHERSON'S FAREWELL. 

Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong. 

The wretch's destinie : 
M'Pherson's time will not be long 

On yonder gallows tree. 



158 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

CHORUS. 

Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, 

Sae dauntingly gaed he ; 
He play'd a spring ajid danc'd it round, 

Below the gallows tree. 

Oh, what is death but parting breath ? 

On monie a bloody plain 
I've dar'd his face, and in this place 

I scorn him yet again ! 

Sae rantingly, &c. 

Untie these bands from off my hands, 
And bring to me my sword ! 

And there's no a man in all Scotland, 
But I'll brave him at a word. 
Sae rantingly, &c. 

• I've liv'd a life of sturt and strife ; 

I die by treacherie : 
It burns my heart I must depart 
And not avenged be. 

Sae rantingly, &c. 

Now farewell light, thou sunshine bright, 

And all beneath the sky! 
May coward shame disdain his name, 

The wretch that dare not die ! 
Sae rantingly, &c. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I 59 



AULD LANG SYNE. 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
And never brought to mind ? 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot 
And auld lang syne 1 

CHORUS. 

For auld lang syne, my dear, 

For auld lang syne, 
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet. 

For auld lang syne. 

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp ! 

And surely I'll be mine ! 
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet 

For auld lang syne. 
For auld, &c. 

We twa hae run about the braes, 
And pou'd the gowans fine ; 

But we've wander'd mony a weary fitt, 
Sin' auld lang syne. 
For auld, &c. 

We twa hae paidl'd i' the burn, 
From morning sun till dine ; 

But seas between us braid hae roar'd 
Sin' auld lang syne. 
For auld, &c. 



l60 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURN'S. 

And here's a hand, my trusty here ! 

And gie's a hand o' thine ! 
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught, 

For auld lang syne. 
For auld, &c. 



UP IN THE MORNING EARLY. 

CHORUS. 

Up in the morning's no for me, 

Up in the morning early ; 
When a' the hills are cover'd wi' snaw, 

I'm sure it's winter fairly. 

Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west, 

The drift is driving sairly ; 
Sae loud and shrill's I hear the blast, 

I'm sure it's winter fairly. 

The birds sit chittering in the thorn, 
A' day they fare but sparely ; 

And lang's the night frae e'en to morn, 
I'm sure it's winter fairly. 
Up in the morning, &c. 



MY BONNIE MARY. 

Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, 
An' fill it in a silver tassie ; 

That I may drink before I go, 
A service to my bonnie lassie. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. l6l 

The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith ; 

Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry ; 
The ship rides by the Berwick-law, 

And I maun leave my bonnie Mary. 

The trumpets sound, the banners fly, 

The glittering spears are ranked ready ; 
The shouts o' war are heard afar, 

The battle closes thick and bloody; 
But it's no the roar o' sea or shore 

Wad mak me langer wish to tarry ; 
Nor shout o' war that's heard afar, 

It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary. 



1789. 
ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE LIMP BY ME, 

WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT AT. 

\AfrJl, 1789.] 

Inhuman man ! curse on thy barb'rous art, 
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye ; 
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh, 

Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart ! 

Go, live, poor wan*d'rer of the wood and field. 

The bitter little that of life remains ; 

No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains 
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield. 



1 62 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest. 
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed ! 
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head, 

The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest. 

Oft as by winding Nith, I, musing, wait 
The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn, 
I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn, 

And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless 
fate. 



JOHN ANDERSON MY JO. 

John Anderson my jo, John, 

When we were first acquent, 
Your locks were like the raven. 

Your bonnie brow was brent ; 
But now your brow is beld, John, 

Your locks are like the snaw ; 
But blessings on your frosty pow, 

John Anderson my jo. 

John Anderson my jo, John, 

We clamb the hill thegither ; 
And monie a cantie day, John, 

We've had wi' ane anither : 
Now we maim totter down, John, 

But hand in hand we'll go. 
And sleep thegither at the foot, 

John Anderson my jo. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 63 

THE HAPPY TRIO. 

Tune — " Willie brciv'd a peck maittP 

O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut, 

And Rob and Allan cam to see ; 
Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night, 

Ye wad na find in Christendie. 

CHORUS. 

We are na fou, we're nae that fou, 

But just a drappie in our e'e ; 
The cock may craw, the day may daw. 

And ay we'll taste the barley bree. 

Here are we met, three merry boys, 
Three merry boys, I trow, are we ; 

And monie a night we've merry been, 
And monie mae we hope to be ! 
We are na fou, (S:c. 

It is the moon, I ken her horn, 
That's blinkin in the lift sae hie ; 

She shines sae bright to wyle us hame. 
But, by my sooth, she'll wait a wee ! 
'Ve are na fou, &c. 

Wha first shall rise to gang awa, 

A cuckold, coward loun is he ! 
Wha first beside his chair shall fa'. 

He is the King among us three ! 
We are na fou, &c. 



164 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

TO MARY IN HEAVEN. 

Tune — "Miss Forbes' farewell to Banff P 

Thou ling'ring star, with less'ning ray, 

That lov'st to greet the early morn. 
Again thou usher'st in the day 

My Mary from my soul was torn. 
O Mary ! dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 

That sacred hour can I forget .'' 

Can I forget the hallow'd grove, 
Where by the winding Ayr we met, 

To live one day of parting love ? 
Eternity cannot efface 

Those records dear of transports past ; 
Thy image at our last embrace ; 

Ah ! little thought we 'twas our last ! 

Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore, 

O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green ; 
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, 

Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene. 
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest. 

The birds sang love on ev'ry spray. 
Till too, too soon, the glowing west 

Proclaim'd the speed of winged day. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 65 

Still o'er these scenes my inem'ry wakes, 

And fondly broods with miser care! 
Time but the impression stronger makes, 

As streams their channels deeper wear. 
My Mary, dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 



MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS. 

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, 
The birth-place of valour, the country of worth : 
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove. 
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. 
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here ; 
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer ; 
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe. 
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. 

Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow ; 
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below ; 
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods ; 
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. 
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here ; 
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer ; 
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, 
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go. 



1 66 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS 



TO DR. BLACKLOCK. 

Ellisland, 2\st Oct., 1789. 
Wow, but your letter made me vauntie ! 
And are ye hale, and weel, and cantie ? 
I kenn'd it still your wee bit jauntie 

Wad bring ye to : 
Lord send you ay as weel's I want ye. 

And then ye'll do. 

The ill-thief blaw the Heron south ! 
And never drink be near his drouth ! 
He tald mysel by word o' mouth, 

He'd tak my letter ; 
I lippen'd to the chiel in trouth. 

And bade nae better. 

But aiblins honest Master Heron 
Had, at the time, some dainty fair one, 
To ware his theologic care on, 

And holy study ; 
And tired o' sauls to waste his lear on. 

E'en tried the body. 

But what d'ye think, my trusty fier, 
I'm turn'd a ganger — Peace be here ! 
Parnassian queens, I fear, I fear 

Ye'll now disdain me ! 
And then my fifty pounds a year 

Will little gain me. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 67 

Ye glaiket, gleesome, dainty damies, 
Wha by Castalia's wimplin streamies, 
Lowp, sing, and lave your pretty limbies, 

Ye ken, ye ken, 
That Strang necessity supreme is 

'Mang sons o' men. 

I hae a wife and twa wee laddies, 

They maun hae brose and brats o' duddies ; 

Ye ken yoursels my heart right proud is — 

I need na vaunt, 
But I'll sned besoms — thraw saugh woodies, 

Before they want. 

Lord help me thro' this warld o' care ! 
I'm weary sick o't late and air ! 
Not but I hae a richer share 

Than monie ithers ; 
But why should ae man better fare, 

And a' men brithers ? 

Come, Firm Resolve, take thou the van, 
Thou stalk o' carl-hemp in man ! 
And let us mind, faint heart ne'er wan 

A lady fair ; 
Wha does the utmost that he can, 

Will whyles do mair. 

But to conclude my silly rhyme, 

(I'm scant o' verse, and scant o' time,) 



l68 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

To make a happy fire-side clime 

To weans and wife, 
That's the true pathos and sublime 

Of human life. 

My compliments to sister Beckie; 

And eke the same to honest Lucky, 

I wat she is a daintie chuckle, 

As e'er tread clay ! 

And gratefully, my guid auld cockie, 

I'm yours for ay. 

Robert Burns. 



ON THE LATE CAPTAIN GROSE'S PERE- 
GRINATIONS THRO' SCOTLAND, 

COLLECTING THE ANTIQUITIES OF THAT KINGDOM. 

Hear, Land o' Cakes, and brither Scots, 
Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groats ; — 
If there's a hole in a' your coats, 

I rede you tent it : 
A chiel's amang you taking notes. 

And, faith, he'll prent it. 

If in your bounds ye chance to light 

Upon a fine, fat, fodgel wight, 

O' stature short, but genius bright. 

That's he, mark weel — 
And wow ! he has an unco slight 

O' cauk and keel. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 69 

By some auld, houlet-haunted biggin, 

Or kirk deserted by its riggin, 

It's ten to ane ye'll find him snug in 

Some eldritch part, 
Wi' deils, they say, Lord save's ! colleaguin 

At some black art. — 

Ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha' or chamer. 

Ye gipsy-gang that deal in glamour. 

And you deep read in hell's black grammar, 

Warlocks and witches, 
Ye'll quake at his conjuring hammer, 

Ye midnight bitches. 

It's tauld he was a sodger bred, 
And ane wad rather fa'n than fied ; 
But now he's quat the spurtle-blade. 

And dog-skin wallet. 
And taen the — Antiquarian trade, 

I think they call it. 

He has a fouth o' auld nick-nackets : 
Rusty airn caps and jinglin jackets. 
Wad hand the Lothian s three in tackets, 

A towmont gude ; 
And parritch-pats, and auld saut-backets, 

Before the Flood. 

Of Eve's first fire he has a cinder ; 
Auld Tubalcain's fire-shool and fender ; 
That which distinguished the gender 
O' Balaam's ass ; 



170 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

A broom-stick o' the witch of Endor, 
Weel shod wi' brass. 

Forbye, he'll shape you aff, fu' gleg 
The cut of Adam's philibeg ; 
The knife that nicket Abel's craig 

He'll prove you fully, 
It was a faulding jocteleg, 

Or lang-kail guUie. — 

But wad ye see him in his glee, 
For meikle glee and fun has he, 
Then set him down, and twa or three 

Gude fellows wi' him ; 
And port, O port ! shine thou a wee. 

And then ye'll see him ! 

Now, by the Powr's o' verse and prose ! 
Thou art a dainty chiel, O Grose ! — 
Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose, 

They sair misca' thee ; 
I'd take the rascal by the nose, 

Wad say, " Shame fa' thee ! " 



TAM GLEN. 

Tune — '•'■The mucking 0' Gcordic's byre!''' 

My heart is a breaking, dear Tittie, 
Some counsel unto me com len'. 

To anger them a' is a pity ; 

But what will I do wi' Tam Glen ? 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I/I 

I'm thinking, wi' sic a braw fellow, 

In poortith I might mak a fen' ; 
What care I in riches to wallow, 

If I maunna marry Tam Glen ? 

There's Lowrie the laird o' Dumeller, 

" Guid-day to you," brute ! he comes ben : 

He brags and he blaws o' his siller, 

But when will he dance like Tam Glen ? 

My minnie does constantly deave me. 
And bids me beware o' young men ; 

They flatter, she says, to deceive me ; 
But wha can think sae o' Tam Glen ? 

My daddie says, gin I'll forsake him. 
He'll gie me guid hunder marks ten : 

But, if it's ordain'd I maun take him, 
O wha will I get but Tam Glen ? 

Yestreen at the Valentine's dealing. 
My heart to my mou gied a sten : 

For thrice I drew ane without failing. 
And thrice it was written, " Tam Glen." 

The last Halloween I was waukin 
My droukit sark-sleeve, as ye ken ; 

His likeness cam up the house staukin — 
And the very gray breeks o' Tam Glen ! 

Come counsel, dear Tittie, don't tarry ; 

I'll gie you my bonnie black hen, 
Gif ye will advise me to marry 

The lad I lo'e dearly, Tam Glen. 



172 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



1790. 
TAM O' SHANTER. 

A TALE. 

Of Brorvnyis and of Bogilis full is this Brtkc. 

Gawin Douglas. 

When chapman billies leave the street, 
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet, 
As market-days are wearing late, 
An' folk begin to tak the gate ; 
While we sit bousing at the nappy, 
An' getting fou and unco happy, 
We think na on the lang Scots miles, 
The mosses, waters, slaps, and styles, 
That lie between us and our hame, 
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame. 
Gathering her brows like gathering storm, 
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 

This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter, 
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter, 
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses. 
For honest men and bonnie lasses.) 

O Tam 1 hadst thou but been sae wise, 
An ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice ! 
She tauld thee weel thou wast a skellum, 
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum ; 
That frae November till October, 
Ae market-day thou was na sober ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 73 

That ilka melder, wi' the miller, 

Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ; 

That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on, 

The smith and thee gat roaring fou on ; 

That at the Lord's house, ev'n on Sunday, 

Thou drank wi' Kirton Jean till Monday. 

She prophesy'd that, late or soon, 

Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon ; 

Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk. 

By Alloway's auld haunted kirk. 

Ah, gentle dames ! it gars me greet. 
To think how mony counsels sweet, 
How mony lengthen'd, sage advices, 
The husband frae the wife despises ! 

But to our tale : Ae market night, 
Tam had got planted unco right ; 
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, 
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely ; 
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, 
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony ; 
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither ; 
They had been fou for weeks thegither. 
The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter ; 
And ay the ale was growing better : 
The Landlady and Tam grew gracious, 
Wi' favours, secret, sweet, and precious : 
The souter tauld his queerest stories ; 
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus : 
The storm without might rair and rustle, 
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle. 

Care, mad to see a man sae happy, 



1/4 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

E'en drown'd himsel amang the nappy : 
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, 
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure ; 
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious, 
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious ! 

But pleasures are like poppies spread. 
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snow-falls in the river, 
A moment white — then melts for ever ; 
Or like the boreal is race, 
That flit ere you can point their place ; 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form 
Evanishing amid the storm. — 
Nae man can tether time or tide ; — 
The hour approaches Tam maun ride ; 
That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane, 
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in ; 
And sic a night he takes the road in. 
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last ; 
The rattling show'rs rose on the blast ; 
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd ; 
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd : 
That night, a child might understand, 
The Deil had business on his hand. 

Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg, 
A better never lifted leg, 
Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire. 
Despising wind, and rain, and fire ; 
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet ; 
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 75 

Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, 
Lest bogles catch him unawares ; 
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, 
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry. — 

By this time he was cross the ford, 
Whare in the snaw, the chapman smoor'd ; 
And past the birks and meikle stane, 
Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane ; 
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn, 
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn ; 
And near the thorn, aboon the well, 
Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel. — 
Before him Doon pours all his floods ; 
The doubling storm roars thro' the woods ; 
The lightnings flash from pole to pole ; 
Near and more near the thunders roll : 
When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees, 
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze ; 
Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing ; 
And loud resounded mirth and dancing. — 

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn ! 
What dangers thou canst make us scorn ! 
Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil ; 
W^i' usquebae, we'll face the devil ! — 
The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle, 
Fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle. 
But Maggie stood right sair astonish 'd, 
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd, 
She ventur'd forward on the light ; 
And, wow ! Tam saw an unco sight ! 
Warlocks and witches in a dance ; 



176 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Nae cotillion brent new frae France, 

But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels. 

Put life and mettle in their heels. 

A winnock-bunker in the east. 

There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast ; 

A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large. 

To gie them music was his charge : 

He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl, 

Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. — 

Coffins stood round like open presses. 

That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses ; 

And by some devilish cantraip slight 

Each in its cauld hand held a light, — 

By which heroic Tam was able 

To note upon the haly table, 

A murderer's banes in gibbet aims ; 

Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns ; 

A thief, new-cutted frae the rape, 

Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape ; 

Five tomahawks, wi' blude red rusted ; 

Five scymitars, wi' murder crusted ; 

A garter, which a babe had strangled ; 

A knife, a father's throat had mangled, 

Whom his ain son o' life bereft, 

The gray hairs yet stack to the heft ; 

Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu'. 

Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'. 

As Tammie glowr'd, amaz'd, and curious, 
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious : 
The piper loud and louder blew ; 
The dancers quick and quicker flew ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. IJJ 

They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit, 
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, 
And coost her duddies to the wark, 
And linket at it in her sark ! 

Now Tarn, O Tarn ! had thae been queans, 
A' plump and strapping in their teens ; 
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen. 
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linnen ! 
Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair. 
That ance were plush, o' gude blue hair, 
I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdles, 
For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies ! 

But wither'd beldams, auld and droll, 
Rigwooddie hags wad spean a foal, 
Lowping and flinging on a crummock, 
I wonder didna turn thy stomach. 

But Tam kend what was what fu' brawlie, 
There was ae winsome wench and walie. 
That night enlisted in the core, 
(Lang after kend on Carrick shore ; 
For mony a beast to dead she shot. 
And perish'd mony a bonnie boat. 
And shook baith meikle corn and bear, 
And kept the country-side in fear,) 
Her cutty sark, o' Paisley harn, 
That while a lassie she had worn. 
In longitude tho' sorely scanty, 
It was her best, and she was vauntie. — 
Ah ! little kend thy reverend grannie. 
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, 
Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches). 



178 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches ! 

But here my muse her wing maun cour ; 
Sic flights are far beyond her pow'r ; 
To sing how Nannie lap and flang, 
(A souple jade she was, and Strang,) 
And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch'd, 
And thought his very een enrich'd ; 
Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain, 
And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main : 
Till first ae caper, syne anither, 
Tam tint his reason a' thegither, 
And roars out, " Weel done, Cutty-sark ! " 
And in an instant all was dark : 
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, 
When out the hellish legion sallied. 

As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke. 
When plundering herds assail their byke ; 
As open pussie's mortal foes, 
When, pop ! she starts before their nose ; 
As eager runs the market-crowd. 
When, " Catch the thief ! " resounds aloud ; 
So Maggie runs, the witches follow, 
Wi' mony an eldritch skreech and hollow. 

Ah, Tam ! ah, Tam ! thou'll get thy fairin ! 
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin ! 
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin ! 
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman ! 
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 
And win the key-stane of the brig : 
There at them thou thy tail may toss, 
A running stream they darena cross. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I/Q 

But ere the key-stane she could make, 
The fient a tail she had to shake 
For Nannie, far before the rest. 
Hard upon noble Maggie prest, 
And flew at Tarn wi' furious ettle ; 
But little wist she Maggie's mettle — 
Ae spring brought off her master hale. 
But left behind her ain gray tail : 
The carlin claught her by the rump, 
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. 

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, 
Ilk man and mother's son, take heed ; 
Whene'er to drink you are inclined, 
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind. 
Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear. 
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare. 



ELEGY ON CAPT. MATTHEW HENDERSON, 

A GENTLEMAN WHO HELD THE PATENT FOR HIS HONOURS 
IMMEDIATELY FROM ALMIGHTY GOD. 

But now his radiant course is run, 
For Matthew'' s co2irse was bright ; 

His soul was like the glorioiis S7tn, 
A matchless, Heavenly Light. 

O Death ! thou tyrant fell and bloody ! 
The meikle devil wi' a woodie 
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie, 
O'er hurcheon hides, 



I So SELECT POEMS OP ROBERT BURNS. 

And like stock-fish come o'er his studdie 
Wi' thy auld sides ! 

He's gane, he's gane ! he's frae us torn, 

The ae best fellow e'er was born ! 

Thee, Matthew, Nature's sel' shall mourn 

By wood and wild. 
Where, haply, Pity strays forlorn, 

Frae man exil'd. 

Ye hills, near neebors o' the starns. 
That proudly cock your cresting cairns 
Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing earns. 

Where echo slumbers ! 
Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns, 

My wailing numbers ! 

Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens ! 
Ye haz'lly shaws and briery dens ! 
Ye burnies, wimplin down your glens, 

Wi' toddlin din. 
Or foaming Strang, wi' hasty stens, 

Frae lin to lin. 

Mourn, little harebells o'er the lee ; 
Ye stately foxgloves fair to see ; 
Ye woodbines hanging bonilie, 

In scented bow'rs ; 
Ye roses on your thorny tree. 

The first o' fiow'rs. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. l8l 

At dawn, when ev'ry grassy blade 

Droops with a diamond at his head, 

At ev'n, when beans their fragrance shed, 

I' th' rustling gale, 
Ye maukins whiddin thro' the glade, 

Come join my wail. 

Afourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood ; 
Ye grouse that crap the heather bud ; 
Ye curlews calling thro' a clud ; 

Ye whistling plover ; 
And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood ; 

He's gane for ever ! 

Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals, 
Ye fisher herons, watching eels ; 
Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels 

Circling the lake ; 
Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels, 

Rair for his sake. 

Mourn, clam'ring craiks at close o' day, 
'Mang fields o' flow'ring clover gay ; 
And when ye wing your annual way 

Frae our cauld shore, 
Tell thae far warlds, wha lies in clay, 

Wham we deplore. 

Ye houlets, frae your ivy bow'r. 

In some auld tree, or eldritch tow'r. 



1 82 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

What time the moon, wi' silent glowr, 

Sets up her horn, 
Wail thro' the dreary midnight hour 

Till waukrife morn ! 

O rivers, forests, hills, and plains ! 
Oft have ye heard my canty strains : 
But now, what else for me remains 

But tales of woe ; 
And frae my een the drapping rains 

Maun ever flow. 

Mourn, Spring, thou darling of the year ! 
Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear : 
Thou, simmer, while each corny spear 

Shoots up its head. 
Thy gay, green, flow'ry tresses shear, 

For him that's dead ! 

Thou, Autumn, wi' thy yellow^ hair, 
In grief thy sallow mantle tear ! 
Thou, winter, hurling thro' the air 

The roaring blast. 
Wide o'er the naked world declare 

The worth we've lost ! 

Mourn him, thou Sun, great source of light ! 
Mourn, empress of the silent night ! 
And you, ye twinkling starnies bright, 

My Matthew mourn ! 
For through your orbs he's ta'en his tlight, 

Ne'er to return. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 83 

O Henderson ! the man ! the brother ! 
And art thou gone, and gone for ever ? 
And hast thou crost that unknown river, 

Life's dreary bound ? 
Like thee, where shall I find another, 

The world around ? 

Go to your sculptur'd tombs, ye Great, 
In a' the tinsel trash o' state ! 
But by thy honest turf I'll wait. 

Thou man of worth ! 
And weep thee ae best fellow's fate 

E'er lay in earth. 



THE BANKS OF NITH. 

Tune — '■'■ Robie Donna Gorach.'^ 

The Thames flows proudly to the sea. 

Where royal cities stately stand; 
But sweeter flows the Nith to me, 

Where Cummins ance had high command 
When shall I see that honour'd land, 

That winding stream I love so dear ! 
Must wayward fortune's adverse hand 

For ever, ever keep me here ? 

How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales, 

Where spreading hawthorns gaily bloom ; 



184 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

How sweetly wind thy sloping dales, 

Where lambkins wanton thro' the broom ! 

Tho' wandering, now, must be my doom, 
Far from thy bonnie banks and braes, 

May there my latest hours consume, 
Amang the friends of early days ! 



1791. 

LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON 
THE APPROACH OF SPRING. 

Now Nature hangs her mantle green 

On every blooming tree, 
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white 

Out-owre the grassy lea : 
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams. 

And glads the azure skies ; 
But nought can glad the weary wight 

That fast in durance lies. 

Now laverocks wake the merry morn. 

Aloft on dewy wing ; 
The merle, in his noontide bow'r. 

Makes woodland echoes ring ; 
The mavis mild wi' many a note, 

Sings drowsy day to rest : 
In love and freedom they rejoice, 

Wi' care nor thrall opprest. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 85 

Now blooms the lily by the bank, 

The primrose down the brae ; 
The hawthorn's budding in the glen, 

And milk-white is the slae : 
The meanest hind in fair Scotland 

May rove thae sweets amang ; 
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland, 

Maun lie in prison Strang. 

I was the Queen o' bctonie France, 

Where happy I hae been, 
Fu' lightly raise I in the morn, 

As blythe lay down at e'en : 
And I'm the sov'reign of Scotland, 

And mony a traitor there ; 
Yet here I lie in foreign bands, 

And never-ending care 

But as for thee, thou false woman. 

My sister and my fae, 
Grim vengeance, yet, shall whet a sword 

That thro' thy soul shall gae : 
The weeping blood in woman's breast 

Was never known to thee ; 
Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe 

Frae woman's pitying e'e. 

My son ! my son ! may kinder stars 

Upon thy fortune shine ; 
And may those pleasures gild thy reign. 

That ne'er wad blink on mine ! 



1 86 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

God keep thee frae thy mother's faes, 

Or turn their hearts to thee : 
And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, 

Remember him for me ! 

Oh ! soon, to me, may summer-suns 

Nae mair light up the morn ! 
Nae mair, to me, tlie autumn winds 

Wave o'er the yellow corn ! 
And in the narrow house o' death 

Let winter round me rave ; 
And the next llow'rs that deck the spring, 

Bloom on my peaceful grave ! 



LAMENT FOR JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 

The wind blew hollow frae the hills, 
By fits the sun's departing beam 
Look'd on the fading yellow woods 

That wav'd o'er lAigar's winding stream : 
Beneath a craigy steep, a Bard, 

Laden with years and meikle pain. 
In loud lament bewail'd his lord, 

Whom death had all untimely taen. 

He lean'd him to an ancient aik. 

Whose trunk was mould'ring down with years ; 
His locks were bleached white wi' time. 

His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 8/ 

And as he touch'd his trembling harp, 

And as he tun'd his doleful sang, 
The winds, lamenting thro' their caves, 

To echo bore the notes alang. 

" Ye scatter'd birds that faintly sing, 

The reliques o' the vernal quire! 
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds 

The honours o' the aged year ! 
A few short months, and glad and gay, 

Again ye'll charm the ear and e'e ; 
But nocht in all revolving time 

Can gladness bring again to me. 

I am a bending aged tree, 

That long has stood the wind and rain ; 
But now has come a cruel blast, 

And my last hold of earth is gane : 
Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring, 

Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom ; 
But I maun lie before the storm, 

And ithers plant them in my room. 

I've seen so many changefu' years, 

On earth I am a stranger grown ; 
I wander in the ways of men, 

Alike unknowing and unknown : 
Unheard, unpitied, unreliev'd, 

I bare alane my lade o' care. 
For silent, low, on beds of dust, 

Lie a' that would my sorrows share. 



1 88 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

And last (the sum of a' my griefs ! ) 

My noble master lies in clay ; 
The flow'r amang our barons bold, 

His country's pride, his country's stay : 
In weary being now I pine. 

For a' the life of life is dead, 
And hope has left my aged ken. 

On forward wing for ever fled. 

Awake thy last sad voice, my harp ! 

The voice of woe and wild despair ! 
Awake, resound thy latest lay. 

Then sleep in silence evermair ! 
And thou, my last, best, only friend, 

That fillest an untimely tomb. 
Accept this tribute from the Bard 

Thou brought from fortune's mirkest gloom„ 

In Poverty's low barren vale. 

Thick mists, obscure, involv'd me round ; 
Though oft I turn'd the wistful eye. 

No ray of fame was to be found : 
Thou found'st me, like the morning sun 

That melts the fogs in limpid air. 
The friendless Bard, and rustic song, 

Became alike thy fostering care. 

O ! why has worth so short a date ? 

While villains ripen grey with time ! 
Must thou, the noble, gen'rous, great. 

Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime ? 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 89 

Why did I live to see that day ? 

A day to me so full of woe ? 
O! had I met the mortal shaft 

Which laid my benefactor low ! 

The bridegroom may forget the bride 

Was made his wedded wife yestreen ; 
The monarch may forget the crown 

That on his head an hour has been ; 
The mother may forget the child 

That smiles sae sweetly on her knee ; 
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn, 

And a' that thou hast done for me ! " 



THE BANKS O' DOON. 

Tune — ^'- The Caledonian Himt-s Delight.'''' 

Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, 

How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ! 
How can ye chant, ye little birds, 

And I sae weary fu' o' care ! 
Thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird, 

That wantons thro' the flowering thorn : 
Thou minds me o' departed joys, 

Departed never to return. 

Thou'lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird, 

That sings beside thy mate. 
For sae I sat, and sae I sang. 

And wist na o' my fate. 



190 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon, 

To see the rose and woodbine twine ; 

And ilka bird sang o' its luve, 
And fondly sae did I o' mine. 

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, 

Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree; 
And my fause luver stole my rose, 

But ah ! he left the thorn wi' me. 
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose 

Upon a morn in June ; 
And sae I flourish'd on the morn, 

And sae was pu'd on noon. 



VERSION PRINTED IN THE MUSICAL 
MUSEUM. 

Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, 

How can ye blume sae fair ! 
How can ye chant, ye little birds, 

And I sae fu' o' care. 

Thou'U break my heart, thou bonnie bird, 

That sings upon the bough ; 
Thou minds me o' the happy days. 

When my fause luve was true. 

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird. 

That sings beside thy mate ; 
For sae I sat, and sae I sang, 

And wist na o' my fate. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I9I 

Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon, 

To see the wood-bine twine, 
And ilka bird sang o' its love, 

And sae did I o' mine. 

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose 

Frae off its thorny tree ; 
And my fause luver staw the rose 

But left the thorn wi' me. 



ADDRESS TO THE SHADE OF THOMSON, 

ON CROWNING HIS BUST AT EDNAM, ROXBURGH-SHIRH, WITH BAYS. 

While virgin Spring, by Eden's flood, 
Unfolds her tender mantle green. 

Or pranks the sod in frolic mood, 
Or tunes Eolian strains between ; 

While Summer with a matron grace 
Retreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade. 

Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace 
The progress of the spiky blade ; 

While Autumn, benefactor kind, 

By Tweed erects his aged head, 
And sees, with self-approving mind. 

Each creature on his bounty fed ; 

While maniac Winter rages o'er 

The hills whence classic Yarrow flows, 



192 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Rousing the turbid torrent's roar, 
Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows ; 

So long, sweet Poet of the year, 

Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won ; 
While Scotia, with exulting tear, 

Proclaims that Thomson was her son. 



AFTON WATER. 

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes. 
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise; 
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 

Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds thro' the glen, 
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den, 
Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear, 
I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair. 

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills. 
Far mark'd with the courses of clear, winding rills; 
There daily I wander as noon rises high. 
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. 

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below, 
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow ; 
There oft as mild ev'ning weeps over the lea, 
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 93 

Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides, 
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides ; 
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave, 
As gathering sweet fiow'rets she stems thy clear wave. 

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes. 
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays ; 
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream. 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 



AE FOND KISS. 

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever! 
Ae fareweel, and then forever ! 
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, 
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him 
While the star of hope she leaves him 1 
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me. 
Dark despair around benights me. 

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy, 
Naething could resist my Nancy ; 
But to see her, was to love her ; 
Love but her, and love forever. 
Had we never lov'd sae kindly. 
Had we never lov'd sae blindly, 
Never met — or never parted. 
We had ne'er been broken hearted. 



194 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest ! 
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest ! 
Thine be ilka joy and treasure, 
Peace, Enjoyment, Love, and Pleasure. 
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; 
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever ! 
Deep in heart-wrung tears I pledge thee, 
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 



1792. 
THE DEIL'S AWA WI' THE EXCISEMAN. 

The Deil cam fiddling thro' the town, 
And danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman ; 

And ilka wife cry'd " Auld Mahoun, 
We wish you luck o' your prize, man. 

We'll mak our maut, and brew our drink, 
We'll dance, and sing, and rejoice, man ; 

And monie thanks to the muckle black Deil 
That danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman. 

There's threesome reels, and foursome reels, 
There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man ; 

But the ae best dance e'er cam to our Ian', 
Was — the Deil's awa wi' the Exciseman. 
We'll mak our maut," <S:c. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 95 



HIGHLAND MARY. 

Tune — '■'■ Kathantie Ogie." 

Ye banks, and braes, and streams around 

The castle o' Montgomery, 
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, 

Your waters never drumlie ! 
There simmer first unfauld her robes, 

And there the langest tarry ; 
For there I took the last fareweel 

O' my sweet Highland Mary. 

How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk. 

How rich the hawthorn's blossom, 
As underneath their fragrant shade 

I clasp'd her to my bosom ! 
The golden hours, on angel wings, 

Flew o'er me and my dearie ; 
For dear to me, as light and life. 

Was my sweet Highland Mary. 

Wi' mony a vow, and lock'd embrace. 

Our parting was fu' tender ; 
And, pledging aft to meet again, 

We tore oursels asunder ; 
But oh ! fell death's untimely frost. 

That nipt my flower sae early ! 
Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay. 

That wraps my Highland Mary ! 



196 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

O pale, pale now, those rosy lips, 

1 aft hae kiss'd sae fondly ! 
And closed for ay the sparkling glance 

That dwelt on me sae kindly ! 
And mould'ring now in silent dust. 

That heart that lo'ed me dearly ! 
But still within my bosom's core 

Shall live my Highland Mary. 



BESSIE AND HER SPINNIN-WHEEL. 

Tm^^ — ''Bottom of the Punch BowlP 

O LEEZE me on my spinn in- wheel, 
O leeze me on my rock and reel ; 
Frae tap to tae that deeds me bien. 
And haps me fiel and warm at e'en ! 
I'll set me down and sing and spin, 
While laigh descends the simmer sun, 
Blest wi' content, and milk and meal, 
O leeze me on my spinnin-wheel. 

On ilka hand the burnies trot. 
And meet below my theekit cot ; 
The scented birk and hawthorn white, 
Across the pool their arms unite, 
Alike to screen the birdie's nest, 
And little fishes' caller rest : 
The sun blinks kindly in the biel', 
Where blythe I turn my spinnin-wheel. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. I97 

On lofty aiks the cushats wail, 
And echo cons the doolfu' tale; 
The lintwhites in the hazel braes, 
Delighted, rival ither's lays; 
The craik amang the claver hay, 
The paitrick whirrin o'er the ley. 
The swallow jinkin round my shiel, 
Amuse me at my spinnin-wheel. 

Wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy, 

Aboon distress, below envy, 

O wha wad leave this humble state. 

For a' the pride of a' the great ? 

Amid their flarin, idle toys. 

Amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys. 

Can they the peace and pleasure feel 

Of Bessie at her spinnin-wheel ? 



BONNIE LESLEY. 

Tune — "7"//^ Collier'' s Boiuiie Dochter." 

O SAW ye bonnie Lesley 

As she gaed o'er the Border? 

She's gane, like Alexander, 

To spread her conquests farther. 

To see her is to love her. 
And love but her for ever ; 

For Nature made her what she is, 
And ne'er made anither ! 



198 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURN'S. 

Thou art a queen, fair Lesley, 
Thy subjects we, before thee : 

Tliou art divine, fair Lesley, 
The hearts o' men adore thee. 

The Deil he could na scaith thee, 
Or aught that wad belang thee ; 

He'd look into thy bonnie face, 
And say, "I canna wrang thee." 

The Powers aboon will tent thee ; 

Misfortune sha'na steer thee; 
Thou'rt like themselves sae lovely, 

That ill they'll ne'er let near thee. 

Return again, fair Lesley, 

Return to Caledonie ! 
That we may brag, we hae a lass 

There's nane again sae bonnie. 



DUNCAN GRAY. 

Duncan Gray came here to woo. 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 
On blythe Yule night when we were fou, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 
Maggie coost her head fu' high, 
Look'd asklent and unco skeigh, 
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh ; 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 1 99 

Duncan fieech'd, and Duncan pray'd ; 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't, 
Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 
Duncan sigh'd baith out and in, 
Grat his een baith bleer't and blin', 
Spak o' lowpin o'er a Hnn ; 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 

Time and Chance are but a tide, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't, 
Slighted love is sair to bide. 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 
Shall I, like a fool, quoth he. 
For a haughty hizzie die ? 
She may gae to — France for me ! 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 

How it comes let doctors tell, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't, 
Meg grew sick — as he grew well, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 
Something in her bosom wrings. 
For relief a sigh she brings ; 
And O, her een, they spak sic things ! 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 

Duncan was a lad o' grace. 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't, 
Maggie's was a piteous case, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 



200 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Duncan couldna be her death, 
Swelling pity smoor'd his wrath ; 
Now they're crouse and cantie baith ! 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 



1793- 
GALLA WATER. 

Braw braw lads on Yarrow braes, 

They rove amang the blooming heather ; 

But Yarrow braes nor Ettrick shaws 
Can match the lads o' Galla Water. 

But there is ane, a secret ane, 
Aboon them a' I lo'e him better ; 

And I'll be his, and he'll be mine. 
The bonnie lad o' Galla Water. 

Altho' his daddie was nae laird, 
And tho' I hae nae meikle tocher ; 

Yet rich in kindest, truest love. 

We'll tent our flocks by Galla Water. 

It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth. 
That coft contentment, peace or pleasure ; 

The bands and bliss o' mutual love, 
O that's the chiefest warld's treasure. 



SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 20I 



WANDERING WILLIE. 

Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie, 

Here awa, there awa, haud awa hame ; 
Come to my bosom, my ain only dearie, 

Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. 
Winter winds blew loud and cauld at our parting. 

Fears for my Willie brought tears in my e'e ; 
Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie, 

The simmer to nature, my Willie to me ! 

Rest, ye wild storms, in the cave of your slumbers ; 

How your dread howling a lover alarms ! 
Wauken, ye breezes, row gently, ye billows. 

And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms. 
But oh, if he's faithless, and minds na his Nannie, 

Flow still between us, thou wide-roaring main ; 
May I never see it, may I never trow it, 

But, dying, believe that my Willie's my ain. 



JESSIE. 

Tune — '■'■ Bomiie Dundee^ 

True-hearted was he, the sad swain o' the Yarrow, 
And fair are the maids on the banks o' the Ayr, 

But by the sw^eet side o' the Nith's winding river. 
Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair : 



202 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over ; 

To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain ; 
Grace, beauty, an' elegance, fetter her lover. 

And maidenly modesty fixes the chain. 

Fresh is the rose in the gay, dewy morning, 

And sweet is the lily at evening close ; 
But in the fair presence o' lovely young Jessie, 

Unseen is the lily, unheeded the rose. 
Love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring ; 

Enthron'd in her een he delivers his law : 
And still to her charms she alone is a stranger ! 

Her modest demeanour's the jewel of a'. 



THE SODGER'S RETURN. 

Tune — "r//^ Mill Mill O." 

When wild war's deadly blast was blawn. 

And gentle peace returning, 
Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless, 

And mony a widow mourning : 
I left the lines and tented field. 

Where lang I'd been a lodger. 
My humble knapsack a' my wealth, 

A poor and honest sodger. 

A leal, light heart was in my breast, 
My hand unstain'd wi' plunder ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 20; 

And for fair Scotia, hame again 

I cheery on did wander. 
I thought upon the banks o' Coil, 

I thought upon my Nancy, 
I thought upon the witching smile 

That caught my youthful fancy. 

At length I reach'd the bonnie glen, 

Where early life I sported ; 
I pass'd the mill, and trysting thorn. 

Where Nancy aft I courted : 
Wha spied I but my ain dear maid, 

Down by her mother's dwelling ! 
And turn'd me round to hide the flood 

That in my een was swelling. 

Wi' alter'd voice, quoth I, Sweet lass, 

Sweet as yon hawthorn blossom, 
O ! happy, happy may he be, 

That's dearest to thy bosom ! 
My purse is light, I've far to gang. 

And fain wad be thy lodger ; 
I've serv'd my King and Country lang — 

Take pity on a sodger ! 

Sae wistfully she gaz'd on me. 

And lovelier was than ever : 
Quo' she, A sodger ance I lo'ed. 

Forget him shall I never : 
Our humble cot, and hamely fare. 

Ye freely shall partake it, 



204 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

That gallant badge, the dear cockade, 
Ye're welcome for the sake o't. 

She gaz'd — she redden'd like a rose — 

Syne pale like onie lily ; 
She sank within my arms, and cried, 

Art thou my ain dear Willie ? 
By Him who made yon sun and sky, 

By whom true love's regarded, 
I am the man ; and thus may still 

True lovers be rewarded ! 

The wars are o'er, and I'm come hame, 

And find thee still true-hearted ; 
Tho' poor in gear, we're rich in love. 

And mair we'se ne'er be parted. 
Quo' she. My grandsire left me gowd, 

A mailen plenish'd fairly ; 
And come, my faithful sodger lad, 

Thou'rt welcome to it dearly ! 

For gold the merchant ploughs the main, 

The farmer ploughs the manor ; 
But glory is the sodger's prize ; 

The sodger's wealth is honour : 
The brave poor sodger ne'er despise, 

Nor count him as a stranger, 
Remember he's his country's stay 

In day and hour o' danger. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 205 



LOGAN BRAES. 

Tune — "Z-ci^'rt« Water :' 

♦ O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide 
That day I was my Willie's bride ; 
And years sin^ne hae o'er us run, 
Like Logan to the simmer sun. 
But now thy flow'ry banks appear 
Like drumlie winter, dark and drear, 
While my dear lad maun face his faes. 
Far, far frae me and Logan Braes. ■ 

Again the merry month o' May 

Has made our hills and valleys gay ; 

The birds rejoice in leafy bowers, 

The bees hum round the breathing flowers ; 

Blythe morning lifts his rosy eye, 

And evening's tears are tears of joy : 

My soul, delightless, a' surveys. 

While Willie's far frae Logan Braes. 

Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush, 
Amang her nestlings, sits the thrush ; 
Her faithfu' mate will share her toil. 
Or wi' his song her cares beguile : 
But I wi' my sweet nurslings here, 
Nae mate to help, nae mate to cheer, 
Pass widow'd nights and joyless days, 
While Willie's far frae Logan Braes. 



206 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

O wae upon you, men o' state, 
That brethren rouse to' deadly hate ! 
As ye mak monie a fond heart mourn, 
Sae may it on your heads return ! 
How can your flinty hearts enjoy 
The widow's tears, the orphan's cry ? 
But soon may peace bring happy days. 
And Willie hame to Logan Braes ! 



THERE WAS A LASS. 

Tune — '^ Bonnie Jean.'''' 

There was a lass, and she was fair. 
At kirk and market to be seen, 

When a' the fairest maids were met, 
The fairest maid was bonnie Jean. 

And ay she wrought her mammie's wark. 
And ay she sang sae merrilie : 

The blythest bird upon the bush 
Had ne'er a lighter heart than she. 

But hawks will rob the tender joys 
That bless the little lintwhite's nest; 

And frost will blight the fairest flowers. 
And love will break the soundest rest. 

Young Robie was the brawest lad, 
The flower and pride of a' the glen ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 20/ 

And he had owsen, sheep and kye, 
And wanton naigies nine or ten. 

He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryste, 
He danc'd wi' Jeanie on the down ; 

And lang ere witless Jeanie wist, 

Her heart was tint, her peace was stown. 

As in the bosom o' the stream 

The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en ; 

So trembling, pure, was tender love, 
Within the breast o' bonnie Jean. 

And now she works her mammie's wark, 
And aye she sighs wi' care and pain ; 

Yet wistna what her ail might be. 
Or what wad make her weel again. 

But didna Jeanie's heart loup light. 

And didna joy blink in her e'e. 
As Robie tauld a tale o' love, 

Ae e'enin on the lily lea ? 

The sun was sinking in the west, 
The birds sang sweet in ilka grove ; 

His cheek to hers he fondly prest, 
And whisper'd thus his tale o' love : 

O Jeanie fair, I lo'e thee dear ; 

O canst thou think to fancy me ? 
Or wilt thou leave thy mammie's cot, 

And learn to tent the farms wi' me ? 



208 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

At barn or byre thou shaltna drudge, 
Or naething else to trouble thee ; 

But stray amang the heather-bells, 
And tent the waving corn wi' me. 

Now what could artless Jeanie do ? 

She had nae will to say him na : 
At length she blush'd a sweet consent, 

And love was ay between them twa. 



BANNOCKBURN. 

ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY. 

Tune — "//■<?>' ticttie tattieP 

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led ; 
Welcome to your gory bed. 

Or to victoria. 
Now's the day, and now's the hour ; 
See the front o' battle lower ; 
See approach proud Edward's power 

Chains and slaverie ! 

Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
Wha can fill a'coward's grave? 
Wha sae base as be a slave ? 
Let him turn and flee ! 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 2O9 

Wha for Scotland's King and law 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
Free-man stand, or free-man fa' ? 
Let him on wi' me ! 

By oppression's woes and pains ! 
By your sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 

But they shall be free ! 
Lay the proud usurpers low 1 
Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
Liberty's in every blow ! 

Let us do, or die ! 



SONNET, 

ON HEARING A THRUSH SING IN A MORNING WALK IN JANUARY, WRITTEN 
25TH JANUARY, 1793, THE BIRTH-DAY OF THE AUTHOR. 

Sing on, sweet Thrush, upon the leafless bough ; 

Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain : 

See aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign. 
At thy blythe carol clears his furrow'd brow. 

So in lone Poverty's dominion drear 

Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart. 
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part. 

Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear. 



2IO SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

I thank thee, Author of this opening day ! 

Thou whose bright sun now gilds the orient skies ! 

Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys, 
What wealth could never give nor take away ! 

Yet come, thou child of poverty and care ; 
The mite high Heav'n bestow'd, that mite with thee I'll 
share. 



DAINTY DAVIE. 

Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, 
To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers ; 
And now comes in the happy hours, 
To wander wi' my Davie. 

CHORUS. — Meet me on the warlock knowe. 
Dainty Davie, dainty Davie, 
There I'll spend the day wi' you, 
My ain dear dainty Davie.' 

The crystal waters round us fa', 
The merry birds are lovers a'. 
The scented breezes round us blaw, 
A wandering wi' my Davie. 
Meet me, &c. 

When purple morning starts the hare, 
To steal upon her early fare, 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 211 

Then through the dews I will repair, 
To meet my faithfu' Davie. 
Meet me, &c. 

When day, expiring in the west, 
The curtain draws o' Nature's rest, 
I flee to his arms I lo'e best, 
And that's my ain dear Davie. 
Meet me, &c. 



1794. 
A VISION. 

Tune — "■Cumnock Psalms.'" 



As I stood by yon roofless tower, 

Where the wa' flower scents the dewy air. 

Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower. 
And tells the midnight moon her care ; 

CHCfRUS. 

A lassie, all alone was making her moan, 
Lamenting our lads beyond the sea : 

In the bluidy wars they fa', and our honour's 
gane an' a', 
And broken-hearted we maun die. 

The winds were laid, the air was still. 
The stars they shot alang the sky ; 



212 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

The fox was howling on tlie hill, 

And the distant-echoing glens reply. 

The stream, adown its hazelly path, 
Was rushing by the ruin'd wa'. 

Hasting to join the sweeping Nith, 
Whase .distant roarings swell and fa'. 

The caiild blae north was streaming forth 
Her lights, wi' hissing, eerie din ; 

Athort the lift they start and shift, 
Like Fortune's favours, tint as win. 

By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes. 
And, by the moonbeam, shook to see 

A stern and stalwart ghaist arise, 
Attir'd as Minstrels wont to be. 

Had I a statue been o' stane, 
His darin look had daunted me ; 

And on his bonnet grav'd was plain 
The sacred posy — Libertie ! 

And frae his harp sic strains did flow, 

Might rous'd the slumbering dead to hear ; 

But oh, it was a tale of woe. 
As ever met a Briton's ear ! 

He sang wi' joy his former day. 

He weeping wail'd his latter times ; 

But what he said — it was nae play, 
I winna ventur't in my rhymes. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS 213 



HARK! THE MAVIS. 

Tune — "C«' the Yowcs to the KjiowesP 
CHORUS* 

Ca' the yowes to the knowes, 
Ca' them where the heather grows, 
Ca' them where the burnie rows, 
My bonnie Dearie. 

Hark ! the mavis' e'ening sang 
Sounding Clouden's woods amang, 
Then a-faulding let us gang, 
My bonnie Dearie. 
Ca' the yowes, &c. 

We'll gae down by Clouden side, 
Thro' the hazels spreading wide, 
O'er the waves that sweetly glide 
To the moon sae clearly. 
Ca' the yowes, &c. 

Yonder Clouden's silent towers. 
Where at moonshine midnight hours, 
O'er the dewy-bending flowers. 
Fairies dance sae cheery. 
Ca' the yowes, &c. 

Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear ; 
Thou'rt to Love and Heaven sae dear, 



214 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Nocht of ill may come thee near, 
My bonnie Dearie. 
Ca' the yowes, &c. 

Fair and lovely as thou art, 
Thou hast stown my very heart ; 
I can die — ^ but canna part, 
My bonnie Dearie. 
Ca' the yowes, &c. 



A RED, RED ROSE. 

Tune — ^^Red., red roseP 

My luve is like a red, red rose, 
That's newly sprung in June : 

O, my luve's like the melodie 
That's sweetly play'd in tune. 

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass. 

So deep in luve am I : 
And I will luve thee still, my Dear, 

Till a' the seas gang dry. 

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, 
And the rocks melt wi' the sun : 

I will luve thee still, my Dear, 
While the sands o' life shall run. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 21 5 

And fare the weel, my only luve, 

And fare thee weel awhile ! 
And I will come again, my luve, 

Tho' it were ten thousand mile. 



MY CHLORIS. 

Tune — '•'■My lodging is on the cold ground P 

My Chloris, mark how green the groves 
The primrose banks how fair : 

The balmy gales awake the flowers, 
And wave thy flaxen hair. 

The lav'rock shuns the palace gay, 

And o'er the cottage sings: 
For Nature smiles as sweet, I ween, 

To Shepherds as to Kings. 

Let minstrels sweep the skilfu' string 

In lordly lighted ha' : 
The shepherd stops his simple reed, 

Blythe, in the birken shaw. 

The princely revel may survey 

Our rustic dance wi' scorn ; 
But are their hearts as light as ours 

Beneath the milk-white thorn ? 



2l6 SELECT FORMS OF FOBERT BURNS. 

The shepherd, in the liowery glen, 
In shepherd's phrase will woo ; 

The courtier tells a liner tale, 
But is his heart as true ? 

These wild- wood flowers I've pu'd, to deck 
That spotless breast o' thine : 

The courtier's gems may witness love — 
But 'tis na love like mine. 



THE CHARMING MONTH OF MAY. 

Tune — ''■Dainty DavteP 

It was the charming month of May, 
When all the flow'rs were fresh and gay. 
One morning, by the break of day, 

The youthful, charming Chloe ; 
From peaceful slumber she arose. 
Girt on her mantle and her hose. 
And o'er the flowery mead she goes, 

The youthful, charming Chloe. 

CHORUS. 

Lovely was she by the dawn, 

Youthful Chloe, charming Chloe, 

Tripping o'er the pearly lawn. 
The youthful, charming Chloe. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 21 y 

The feather 'd people you might see 
Perch'd all around on every tree, 
In notes of sweetest melody 

They hail the charming Chloe; 
Till, painting gay the eastern skies 
The glorious sun began to rise, 
Out-rival'd by the radiant eyes 

Of youthful, charming Chloe. 
Lovely was she, &c. 



LASSIE Wr THE LINT-WHTFE LOCKS. 

Tune — " Rothicmiirchies RantP 
CHORUS. 

Lassie wi' the lint-white locks, 
Bonnie lassie, artless lassie, 

Wilt thou wi' me tent the flocks ? 
Wilt thou be my Dearie O ? 

Now nature deeds the flowery lea, 
And a' is young and sweet like thee ; 
O wilt thou share its joys wi' me. 
And say thou'll be my Dearie O .^ 
Lassie wi', &c. 

The primrose bank, the wimpling burn, 
The cuckoo on the milk-white thorn. 
The wanton lambs at early morn, 
Shall welcome thee, my Dearie O. 
Lassie wi', &c. 



21 8 SELECT POEMS OE ROBERT BURNS. 

And when the welcome simmer-shower 
Has cheer'd ilk drooping little flower, 
We'll to the breathing woodbine bower 
At sultry noon, my Dearie O. 
Lassie wi', &c. 

When Cynthia lights, wi' silver ray. 
The weary shearer's hameward way. 
Thro' yellow waving fields we'll stray, 
And talk o' love, my Dearie O. 
Lassie wi', &c. 

And when the howling wintry blast 
Disturbs my Lassie's midnight rest ; 
Enclasped to my faithfu' breast, 
I'll comfort thee, my Dearie O. 
Lassie wi', «&:c. 



CONTENTED WI' LITTLE. 

Tune — " Lumps o ' Pudding." 

Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair. 
Whene'er I forgather wi' Sorrow and Care, 
I gie them a skelp as they're creepin' alang, 
Wi' a cog o' gude swats, and an auld Scottish sang. 

I whyles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought; 
But man is a soger, and life is a faught : 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 219 

My mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch, 

And my freedom's my lairdship nae monarch dare touch. 

A towmond o' trouble, should that be my fa', 
A night o' gude fellowship sowthers it a' ; 
When at the blythe end of our journey at last, 
Wha the deil ever thinks o' the road he has past ? 

Blind Chance, let her snapper and stoyte on her way, 
Be't to me, be't frae me, e'en let the jade gae : 
Come ease, or come travail ; come pleasure or pain, 
My warst word is — '" Welcome, and welcome again ! " 



MY NANNIE'S AWA. 

Tune — '■'■There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hameP 

Now in her green mantle blythe Nature arrays. 
And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, 
While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw ; 
But to me it's delightless — my Nannie's awa. 

The snaw-drop and primrose our woodlands adorn, 
And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn : 
They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw. 
They mind me o' Nannie — my Nannie's awa. 

Thou laverock that springs frae the dews o' the lawn, 
The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn. 
And thou, yellow mavis, that hails the night-fa', 
Gie over for pity — my Nannie's awa. 



220 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Come autumn sae pensive, in yellow and gray, 
And soothe me wi' tidings o' nature's decay; 
The dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw, 
Alane can delight me — now Nannie's awa. 



1795- 
FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT. 

Is there, for honest poverty, 

That hangs his head, and a' that ? 
The coward-slave, we pass him by, 
We dare be poor for a' that ! 
For a' that, an' a' that, 

Our toils obscure, an' a' that ; 
The rank is but the guinea's stamp ; 
The man's the gowd for a' that. 

What tho' on hamely fare we dine, 

Wear hodden-grey, an' a' that ; 
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, 
A man's a man for a' that. 
For a' that, an' a' that, 

Their tinsel show, an' a' that -. 
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, 
Is King o' men for a' that. 

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, 

Wha struts, and stares, an' a' that ; 

Tho' hundreds worship at his word, 
He's but a coof for a' that : 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 221 

For a' that, an' a' that, 

His riband, star, an' a' that, 
The man of independent mind, 

He looks and laughs at a' that. 

A prince can mak a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, an' a' that ; 
But an honest man's aboon his might, 
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that ! 
For a' that, an' a' that. 

Their dignities, an' a' that. 
The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, 
Are higher rank than a' that. 

Then let us pray that come it may, 

(As come it will for a' that). 
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth. 
May bear the gree, and a' that. 
For a' that, an' a' that. 

It's coming yet, for a' that. 
That man to man, the warld o'er. 
Shall brothers be for a' that. 



THE DUMFRIES VOLUNTEERS. 

Tune — ^^ Push about the jorum. '^ 

April, 1795. 

Does haughty Gaul invasion threat ? 

Then let the louns beware, Sir, 
There's Wooden Walls upon our seas. 

And Volunteers on shore. Sir. 



222 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

The Nith shall run to Corsincon, 

And Criffel sink in Solway, 
Ere we permit a foreign foe 

On British ground to rally ! 

Fal de ral, &c. 

O let us not like snarling curs 

In wrangling be divided ; 
Till, slap ! come in an unco loun 

And wi' a rung decide it. 
Be Britain still to Britain true, 

Amang oursels united ; 
For never but by British hands 

Maun British wrangs be righted ! 

Fal de ral, &c. 

The Kettle o' the Kirk and State, 

Perhaps a clout may fail in't ; 
But deil a foreign tinkler loun 

Shall ever ca' a nail in't. 
Our Fathers' bluid the Kettle bought, 

And wha wad dare to spoil it ; 
By heaven, the sacrilegious dog 

Shall fuel be to boil it. 

Fal -de ral, «Sz:c. 

The wretch that wad a tyrant own. 
And the wretch his true-born brother, 

Who would set the Mob aboon the Throne, 
May they be damned together ! 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 223 

Who will not sing, " God save the King," 

Shall hang as high's the steeple ; 
But while we sing, " God save the King," 

We'll ne'er forget The People ! 



ADDRESS TO THE WOODLARK. 

Tune — " Where' II honnie Ann lieT 

O STAY, sweet warbling woodlark, stay, 
Nor quit for me the trembling spray, 
A hapless lover courts thy lay. 
Thy soothing fond complaining. 

Again, again that tender part, 
That I may catch thy melting art ; 
For surely that wad touch her heart, 
Wha kills me wi' disdaining. 

Say, was thy little mate unkind. 
And heard thee as the careless wind? 
Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd 
Sic notes o' wae could wauken. 

Thou tells o' never-ending care ; 
O' speechless grief, and dark despair ; 
For pity's sake, -sweet bird, nae mair ! 
Or my poor heart is broken 1 



224 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURiVS. 



INSCRIPTION 

WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF OF A COPY OF THE LAST 

EDITION OF MY POEMS, PRESENTED TO THE 

LADY WHOM I HAVE SO OFTEN SUNG 

UNDER THE NAME OF CHLORIS, 

'Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend, 

Nor thou the gift refuse, 
Nor with unwilUng ear attend 

The moralizing Muse. 

Since thou, in all thy youth and charms, 

Must bid the world adieu, 
(A w^orld 'gainst peace in constant arms) 

To join the friendly few. 

Since, thy gay morn of life o'ercast. 

Chill came the tempest's lower, 
(And ne'er Misfortune's eastern blast 

Did nip a fairer flower.) 

Since life's gay scenes must charm no more, 

Still much is left behind ; 
Still nobler wealth hast thou in store — 

The comforts of the mind ! 

Thine is the self-approving glow. 
On conscious Honour's part ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 225 

And, dearest gift of Heaven below, 
Thine friendship's truest heart. 

The joys refin'd of sense and taste, 

With every muse to rove : 
And doubly were the Poet blest, 

These joys could he improve. 



TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Tune — ^'- The hopeless lover P 

Now spring has clad the groves in green. 

And strew'd the lea wi' flowers ; 
The furrow'd waving corn is seen 

Rejoice in fostering showers ; 
While ilka thing in nature join 

Their sorrows to forego, 
O why thus all alone are mine 

The weary steps of woe ! 

The trout within yon wimpling burn 

Glides swift, a silver dart. 
And safe beneath the shady thorn 

Defies the angler's art : 
My life was once that careless stream, 

That wanton trout was I ; 
But love, wi' unrelenting beam, 

Has scorch'd my fountain dry. 



226 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

The little flow'ret's peaceful lot, 

In yonder cliff that grows, 
Which, save the linnet's flight, I wot, 

Nae ruder visit knows, 
Was mine ; till love has o'er mc past. 

And blighted a' my bloom, 
And now beneath the withering blast 

My youth and joy consume. 

The waken'd lav'rock warbling springs, 

And climbs the early sky, 
Winnowing blythe her dewy wings 

In morning's rosy eye ; 
As little reckt I sorrow's power, 

Until the flowery snare 
O' witching love in luckless hour, 

Made me the thrall o' care. 

O had my fate been Greenland's snows 

Or Afric's burning zone, 
Wi' man and nature leagu'd my foes, 

So Peggy ne'er I'd known ! 
The wretch whase doom is, " Hope nac mair! " 

What tongue his woes can tell ! 
Within whose bosom, save despair, 

Nae kinder spirits dwell. 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 22/ 



1796. 
ALTHO' THOU MAUN NEVER BE MINE. 

Tune — '■'•Here's a hcaltJi to them that's awa, Hiney.^'' 
CHORUS. 

Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear, 
Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear ; 
Thou art as sweet as the smile when fond lovers 
meet, 
And soft as their parting tear — Jessy' 

Altho' thou maun never be mine, 

Altho' even hope is denied ; 
'Tis sweeter for thee despairing, 

Than aught in the world beside — Jessy! 
Here's a health, cS:c. 

I mourn thro' the gay, gaudy day, 
As, hopeless, I muse on thy charms : 

But welcome the dream o' sweet slumber, 
For then I am lockt in thy arms — Jessy ! 
Here's a health, &c. 

I guess by the dear angel smile, 
I guess by the love-rolling e'e ; 

But why urge the tender confession 

'Gainst fortune's cruel decree — Jessy ! 
Here's a health, &c. 



228 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



WERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST. 

Tune — '■'■The Lass of Livingstofie.'''' 

O, WERT thou in the cauld blast, 

On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 
My plaidie to the angry airt, 

I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee. 
Or did misfortune's bitter storms 

Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, 
Thy bield should be my bosom. 

To share it a', to share it a'. 

Or were I in the wildest waste, 

Of earth and air, of earth and air. 
The desart were a paradise, 

If thou wert there, if thou wert there. 
Or were I monarch o' the globe, 

Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, 
The only jewel in my crown 

Wad be my queen, wad be my queen. 



POEM ON PASTORAL POETRY. 

Hail, Poesie ! thou Nymph reserv'd ! 

In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerv'd 

Frae common sense, or sunk enerv'd 

'Mang heaps o' clavers ; 



SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS 229 

And och ! o'er aft thy joes hae starv'd, 
'Mid a' thy favours ! 

Say, Lassie, why thy train amang, 
While loud the trump's heroic clang. 
And sock or buskin skelp alang 

To death or marriage ; 
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang 

But wi' miscarriage ? 

In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives ; 
Eschylus' pen Will Shakespeare drives ; 
Wee Pope, the knurlin, 'till him rives 

Horatian fame ; 
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives 

Even Sappho's flame. 

But thee, Theocritus, wha matches ? 
They're no herd's ballats, Marco's catches ; 
Squire Pope but busks his skinklin patches 

O' heathen tatters : 
I pass by hunders, nameless wretches, 

That ape their betters. 

In this braw age o' wit and lear. 

Will nane the Shepherd's whistle fnair 

Blaw sweetly in its native air 

And rural grace; 
And wi' the far-fam'd Grecian share 

A rival place .'' 



230 SELECT POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Yes ! there is ane ; a Scottish callan — 
There's ane ; come forrit, lionest Allan ! 
Thou need na jouk behint the hallan, 

A chiel sae clever ; 
The teeth o' Time may gnaw Tantallan, 

But thou's for ever ! 

Thou paints auld Nature to the nines, 

In thy sweet Caledonian lines ; 

Nae gowden stream thro' myrtles twines, 

Where Philomel, 
While nightly breezes sweep the vines, 

Her griefs will tell ! 

In gowany glens thy burnie strays, 
Where bonnie lasses bleach their claes ; 
Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes, 

Wi' hawthorns gray. 
Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays 

At close o' day. 

Thy rural loves are nature's sel' ; 

Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell ; 

Nae snap conceits ; but that sweet spell 

O' witchin' love ; 
That charm that can the strongest quell, 
• The sternest move. 



CHRONOLOGICAL. 



January 25, 1759. 
1765- 

1766-1777. 
1768. 

1769. 

1 777-1 784. 

1778. 

1780. 

1781. 

1782. 

1783. 
February, 1784. 

1 784-1 786. 
1785. 



1759-1786. 

Birth at Ayr, parish of AUoway. 
School at Alloway Mill; with Murdock. 

At Mount Oliphant, parish of Ayr (1766). 
Early associations on the farm. Taught at home 

by his father. 
Books. Love and song. 
Jenny Wilson. 

At Lochlea, parish of Tarbolton. 

School at Kirkoswald. 

The Bachelors' Club. 

Flax-dressing at Irvine. 

Finds Fergusson's Poems. 

A Freemason. 

His father's death. 

At Mossgiel, parish of Mauchline. 

Early friends: Gavin Hamilton, Robert Aiken. 

Struggle with Auld Lichts. 

Poetic Springtide. 

Epistles. 

Satirical Poems. 

Descriptive Poems. 

Songs. 

231 



232 CHRONOLOGICAL. 

August, 1786. Kilmarnock (first) edition of poems published. 

Literary friendships: Dr. Blacklock, Dugald Stew- 
art, Dr. Blair, Rev. Mr. Laurie, Mrs. Dunlop. 
Visits Katrine, meets Lord Daer and Mrs. Stewart. 







1786-1788. 


November, : 


[786. 


Visits Edinburgh. 

Among the celebrities. 


April, 1787. 




Second edition of poems, 
Travels in Scotland. 


May 




Border Tour. 


June. 




Returns to Mossgiel. 



First Highland Tour. 
Second Highland Tour. 
Third Highland Tour. 



September. 


Returns to Edinburgh. 




Johnson's Museum. 


March, 1788. 


Leaves Edinburgh. 




I 788-1796. 


1 788-1 791. 


At Ellisland. 


August, 1788. 


Marries Jean Armour. 




At Friar's Carse. 


1790. 


Appointed Excise Officer. 


1791-1796. 


At Dumfries. Bank Vennel 




Dumfries Volunteers. 




Thomson's Collection. 


1792. 


Patriotic Songs. 


1793- 


Visits Galloway. 


1794. 


Removes to Mill Hill Brae. 




Failing Health. 


July 21, 1796. 


Death. 



NOTES. 



FIRST PERIOD. 1773 -1786. 

The most natural divisions into which Burns's work may be divided 
are 1 773-1 786 and 1 787-1 796. In the first period, which closed with 
the publication of the first edition of his poems, we have the early love- 
songs, epistles, satires, and poems humorous and descriptive relating 
to rural life and manners. These are for the most part in the native 
Scottish dialect, and are simple, picturesque, and impassioned. In the 
second period we have mostly songs based upon the early minstrelsy. 
The occasion of many of these was the publication of Johnson's I\hi- 
senni, a collection of the best Scottish songs, and later a similar pub- 
lication by Thomson. To these two works Burns was a frequent 
contributor. His three Highland tours were productive of the best 
results in the way of song. He visited the famous Highland fiddlei 
and composer of Scotch tunes, Neil Gow, at his home on the Braan 
near Dunkeld. He also met Rev. John Skinner, the author of 77ie 
Eiuie ivi ' the Crookit Honi, which had suggested to him the poems on 
Poor Mailie. It was by such intercourse that the old songs of Scotland 
became so prominent in his work of this period. He thus anticipated 
Scott in this field, — the one was a re-creator, the other a preserver. 
Some critics have attempted to decide upon the relative merits of the 
work in these two periods, but it is unprofitable business, as each 
is unique and perfect after its kind. 

The work of each of these periods has a local color according as 
it is related to the three different centres. In the first we have work 
done at Mount Oliphant, Lochlea, and Mossgiel; in the second, that at 

233 



234 NOTES. [1773- 1783] 

Edinburgh, Ellisland, and Dumfries. There is no EngUsh poet, except 
Wordsworth, whose work is so intimately associated with places. We 
may understand Dante without a visit to Florence, and Shakespeare 
even without a visit to Stratford; but Burns is so closely associated 
with the nature of the people and the beauty of the districts in which 
he lived, that something of his peculiar charm will be lost unless one 
appreciates the environment of places he has made classic. 



1773 -1783. 

HANDSOME NELL. 

{Currie, 1800.) 

The poems composed at Mount Oliphant and at Lochlea are not 
many, but they reveal much that is of importance to the student of 
Burns. As the child is father of the man the later poems can be 
understood only by a thorough study of all the influences which were 
at work to mould the mind and heart of this peasant lad. The most 
powerful influence was that of love, and it is no wonder that Burns's 
first poem was a song of love. He tells us that the book most prized 
by him as a boy was an old song-book, which he carried with him 
wherever he went, whether he drove the cart, held the plough, tended 
the cattle, or toiled in the harvest-field. Then, too, his home was 
filled with influences the best possible for the development of his 
genius. It was a home of song. By song he was nursed; by it he 
grew to manhood; and by it his lyric genius was kindled. Not only 
was his song-craft thus created, but his critic-craft as well; for he says, 
" I carefully noted the true, tender, or sublime, from affectation and 
fustian." We must not forget that this was a period of severe toil 
and of the sternest self-denial, — "the cheerless gloom of a hermit 
with the unceasing moil of a galley-slave." " My brother," says Gil- 
bert, "at the age of thirteen, assisted in threshing the crop of corn, 
and at fifteen was the principal laborer on the farm." Carlyle has 
said that "our Scottish son of thunder had, for want of a better, 
to pour his lightning through the narrow cranny of Scottish song, 



[1 773-1 783] NOTES. 235 

the narrowest cranny ever vouchsafed to any son of thunder." Was 
it so narrow a cranny after all ? 

The circumstances attending the birth of this song are given us in 
the poet's own words: — 

" You know," he says, " our country custom of coupling a man and 
a woman together as partners in the labors of the harvest. In my 
fifteenth summer (1773) my partner was a bewitching creature, a year 
younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of 
doing her justice in that language, but you know the Scottish idiom. 
She was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. . . . Among her love-inspiring 
qualities she sang sweetly; and it was her favorite reel to which I 
attempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so pre- 
sumptuous as to imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, 
composed by men who read Greek and Latin; but my girl sang a song 
which was said to be composed by a country laird's son on one of his 
father's maids with whom he was in love, and I saw no reason why I 
might not rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he could shear 
sheep and cast peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had 
no more scholarship than myself. Thus with me began love and 
poetry." 

In Burns's Commonplace Book., April, 17S3, we find this poem and 
the following comment: "There is certainly some connection between 
love and music and poetry; and therefore I have always thought it a- 
fine touch of nature, that passage in a modern love-composition : — 

*As toward her cot he jogged along, 
Her name was frequent in his song.' 

For my own part I never had the least thought or inclination of turn- 
ing poet till I got once heartily in love, and then rhyme and song 
were in a manner the spontaneous language of my heart. The fol- 
lowing composition was the first of my performances. The subject of 
the poem was a young girl (Nellie Kirkpatrick) who really deserved 
all the praises I have bestowed upon her." Then follows some 
admirable criticism of the poem, stanza by stanza. "The thoughts 
in the fifth stanza come finely up to my favorite idea — a sweet, sonsie 
lass; the last line, however, halts a little." 



236 NOTES. [1773-1783] 

Burns called this "puerile and silly;" but if we compare it with 
the earliest work of other lyric poets, we can see how far he surpasses 
them all. I do not know of any first poem of any author which has 
in it such promise and potency of future greatness. This is reason 
sufficient for inserting it in a collection which aims to be representa- 
tive. For an admirable discussion of Burns's power as a song-writer, 
see Shairp's Aspects of Poetry, "Scottish Song and Burns." 

In comparing the high light of this poem with the low light of the 
' auld clay biggin' in which the poet was nurtured, Mrs. Oliphant says, 
"The little scene in the harvest-field balances with its sweet daylight, 
its first love and first song, the Rembrandt interior of the farmhouse 
kitchen and its copybooks. ' Puirtith cauld,' such as 'wrecks the 
heart,' and labors without ceasing — but at the same time warm, 
natural, hopeful life and poetry and love; a prince could not have 
more." 

In 1786 Burns presented copies of some of his early poems to Mrs. 
Stewart of Stair. The manuscript of this poem omits the fifth stanza, 
and gives the fourth as follows : — 

" But Nelly's looks are blythe and sweet, 
Good-humored, frank, and free ; 
And still the more I view them o'er. 
The more they captive me." 

He afterwards returned to the original form of 1783. 

Although Burns is known chiefly by his verse, his prose is interest- 
ing for many reasons; but chiefly for its content — the light which it 
throws upon his life and habits of poetic composition. What interests 
us in its form is the fact that it reveals imitation rather than creation. 
He deliberately set about being a good prose-writer, and failed be- 
cause of this very consciousness of effort. His verse is characterized 
by spontaneity and grace ; his prose too often by affectation and 
dress. He says, " I had met with a collection of letters by the wits 
of Queen Anne's reign, and I pondered over them most devoutly." 
In his Tarbolton days he piqued himself on his ability to write a billet 
doux. 



[1773-1783] NOTES. 237 

THE RIGS O' BARLEY. 

{Kilmarnock Ed., 1786.) 

At the time of the previous poem Burns was living at Mount Oli- 
phant; but on the death of the landlord, who had always dealt kindly 
with the family, they fell into the hands of a factor (agent) who was 
severe even to heartlessness. In 1787, ten years after the events of 
this season. Burns wrote, "My indignation yet boils at the recollec- 
tion of the scoundrel factor's insolent threatening letters which used 
to set us all in tears." The lease terminated in 1777, when they re- 
moved to Lochlea in the parish of Tarbolton, on the River Ayr, where 
they remained seven years. " These seven years," says Gilbert Burns, 
" brought small literary improvement to Robert; " yet these years gave 
us some of the songs which have become most certain of immortality. 
During this time the social instinct in Burns becomes prominent, and 
is reflected in this poem. The melody of this song floated down from 
earliest time. Burns from the first laid it down as a rule " ' to sowth 
the tune' over and over, as the readiest way to catch the inspiration, 
and raise the bard into that glorious enthusiasm so strongly character- 
istic of our old Scottish poetry." 

" It is generally believed in the west of Scotland that Annie Ronald 
was the inspirer of this charming song. The poet was a frequent 
visitor at her father's house, and Mr. Ronald liked so much the con- 
versation of his eloquent neighbor that he sat late with him on many 
occasions." — Cunningham. 

Mr. Douglas says, " Many of the Annies of the district have con- 
tended for the honor of being the heroine of this poem." 



NOW WESTLIN WINDS. • 

{Kilinaniock Ed., 1786.) 

Burns went to the dancing-school to give his rustic manners "a 
brush," as he called it. He spent his seventeenth summer at Kirkos- 
wald, on the Carrick coast, studying mensuration. Here he met a lass 



238 NOTES. [1773-1783] 

by the name of Peggy Thomson, \vho became the subject of this 
poem. "Stepping into the garden," says he, "one charming noon, 
to take the sun's aUitude, there I met my angel, — 

' Like Proserpine gathering flowers, 
Herself a fairer flower.' 

It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school." On re- 
turning to Lochlea he wrote this poem. 

Burns wrote four lyrics in honor of this charmer, of which this is 
the best. She was alarmed, it is said, when one of the poems ap- 
peared in print. She was a woman of much higher position than 
Burns; but she loved his admiration, and led him on, although she was 
affianced to another. Burns says, " It cost me some heart-aches to get 
rid of the affair." 

In 1786, when the first edition of his poems was published, he sent 
a copy to the Kirkoswald Peggy. In it was written: — 

" Once fondly lov'd, and still remember'd dear, 
Sweet early object of my youthful vows, 
Accept this mark of friendship, warm, sincere, 
Friendship! 'tis all cold duty now allows." 

In a note to this poem in Burns's manuscript collection, he says: 
"Poor Peggy! Her husband is my old acquaintance, and a most 
worthy fellow." 

"Burns was the lyric poet of love, — love in its purest and best 
form — among a class of unsophisticated people, who have no temp- 
tation either to poison its purity by secondary respects, or to let it run 
riot in fields of unreal and unhealthy imagination." — John Stuart 
Blackie. 

Robert Louis Stevenson says of this period in Burns's life: " Gal- 
lantry was the essence of life among the Ayrshire hills as well as in 
the court of Versailles ; and the days were distinguished from each 
other by love-letters, meetings, tiffs, reconciliations." " In all this," 
says Andrew Lang, " Burns is the true representative of every Scot 
who is a Scot, and of his nation." Burns has received generous treat- 
ment at the hands of his brother poets in Scotland ; and to see him 



[1773-1783] NOTES. 239 

as he is thus viewed by his countrymen, the student should read 
Cunningham, Hogg, Shairp, Blackie, Carlyle, Wilson, Minto, Veitch, 
Stevenson, and Lang. 

^ MY NANNIE O. 
{Edhibiirgh Ed., 1787.) 

Love-making now becomes still more a passion. "I felt," he 
says, "as much pleasure in being in the secret of half the loves of the 
parish of Tarl^olton, as ever did statesman in knowing the intrigues of 
the courts of Europe. 

When twenty-one years of age, Burns founded the famous Tarbol- 
ton Bachelors' Club. The following is from the preamble, which 
Burns himself wrote : — 

" Of birth or blood we do not boast, 
Nor gentry does our club afford; 
But ploughmen and mechanics we 
In nature's simple dress record. 

*' As the great end of human society is to become wiser and better, 
this ought, therefore, to be the principal view of every man in every 
station in life. But as experience has taught us that such studies as 
inform the head and mend the heart, when long continued, are apt to 
exhaust the faculties of the mind, it has been found proper to relieve 
and unbend the mind by some employment or other that may be 
agreeable enough to keep its powers in exercise, but at the same time 
not so serious as to exhaust them. . . . 

" Impressed with these considerations, we, the following lads in the 
parish of Tarbolton, resolved for our mutual entertainment to unite 
ourselves into a club or society under such rules and regulations that, 
while we should forget our cares and labors, we might not transgress 
the bounds of innocence and decorum." The first meeting was on 
Halloween, the nth of November, 1780, when Burns was chosen 
president, and the question for debate was a very practical one, — of 
what were the most desirable qualities in a wife. 

Burns also formulated the rules for the government of the society; 



240 NOTES. [1773-1783] 

they are, as Professor Blackie says, " judicious and sensible, and 
contain nothing in the main but what the necessities of profitable dis- 
cussion and the laws of good order plainly suggest." Rule No. 10 
is strikingly indicative of the poet's character. It is as follows: — 

" Every man proper for a member of this society must have a 
frank, honest, open heart, above anything dirty or mean ; and must 
be a professed lover of one or more of the female sex. In short, the 
proper person for this society is a cheerful, honest-hearted lad, who, 
if he has a friend that is true, and a mistress that is kind, and as 
much wealth as genteelly to make both ends meet, is just as happy 
as this world can make him." 

*' The Nannie who lived among the mosses near the Lugar was 
a farmer's daughter, of Tarbolton parish, Agnes Fleming by name, 
and charmed unconsciously the sweet lay, ' My Nannie O,' from 
the elegance of her person and the melody of her voice. She died 
unmarried and well advanced in life. When questioned about the 
poet's attachment, she said, ' Aye, atweel he made a great wark about 
me.' " — Cunningham. 

Allan Ramsay, to whose inspiration Burns owed so much, has a 
song by the same name, and composed to the same air; but it is 
distinctly inferior to that of our poet. Compare the following stanza 
of Ramsay's poem with the fifth of Burns's: — 

" How joyfully my spirits rise, 
When dancing, she moves finely O ; 
I guess what heaven is by her eyes, 
Which sparkle so divinely O." 

What Professor Blackie says of the poems of this period is strik- 
ingly true of this one as contrasted with Ramsay's. " In them we 
discover all the genuine warmth, unaffected simplicity, and easy grace 
of truthful nature which will often be sought for in vain in the lyric 
productions of the most accomplished poets of the most refined ages of 
all countries; nothing conventional, nothing artificial, nothing affected 
or overstrained." 

" Never was a more manly song." — Mrs. Oliphant. 

Burns says, "Whether 'My Nannie O' will stand the test I will 



[1773- 1 783] NOTES. 24 1 

not pretend to say, because it is my own; only I can say it was, at the 
time, genuine from the heart." 

These were the poems which kindled the lyric fire in Wordsworth, 
and which caused him to pay that touchingly sympathetic tribute to 
Burns in 1803, when there was so much severity and injustice meted 
out in the name of criticism : — 

" Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth 
He sang, his genius ' glinted ' forth, 
Rose Uke a star that touching earth, 

For so it seems, 
Doth glorify its humble birth 

With matchless beams. 

I mourned with thousands, but as one 
More deeply grieved; for he was gone, 
Whose light I hailed when first it shone, 

And showed my youth 
How verse may build a princely throne 

On humble truth." 

It was fitting that the first-fruits of Wordsworth's earliest visit to 
Scotland should be dedicated to the memory of the ploughman poet. 
Written in Burns's favorite metre, they are the finest tribute ever paid 
to that " darling of the Muses." 

v. Cf. Wordsworth's Memorials of a Tour in Scotland. 

In 1792 Burns wrote to Thomson: — 

" Let me remark to you that in the sentiment and style of our 
Scotch airs there is a pastoral simplicity, a something we may call 
the Doric style and dialect of vocal music, to which a dash of our 
native tongue and manners is particularly, nay, peculiarly, apposite." 



MARY MORISON. 

{Currie, iSoo.) 

This tender and delicate song reveals the nature of Burns's trysts 
with the lasses of Tarbolton in a free and healthful manner, and with 
nothing of coarseness or rudeness. Burns says of these meetings: 
" To the sons and daughters of labor and poverty they are matters of 



242 NOTES. [ 1 773-1 783 1 

the most serious nature; to them, the ardent hope, the stolen interview, 
the tender farewell, are the greatest and most delicious parts of their 
enjoyments." Writing to Mr. Thomson in 1793, he says of this poem: 
"It is one of my juvenile works. I do not think it very remarkable 
either for its merits or its demerits." 

Mr. Stopford Brooke says, " The same passion ran through all 
he said and did. No one felt more keenly than Burns that tingling 
of the heart which at its highest produces poetry of word and deed." 

Mr. Douglas says of the variety of Burns's objects of interest: 
*' One might as well try to trace all the originals of Horace's or 
Herrick's fancy as that of Burns, for when he became famous even 
married women contended to have sat to him for their portraits. The 
passion is more lively than intense, their charm is in the field breeze 
that blow^s through them as freshly as in the old days of Chaucer." 

" Song drooped and fell, and one 'neath northern skies, 
With southern heart, who tilled his father's field, 
Found Poesy a-dying, bade her rise 
And touch quick Nature's hem, and go forth healed. 

On life's broad plain the ploughman's conquering share 

Upturned the fallow lands of truth anew, 
And o'er the formal garden's trim parterre 

The peasant's team a ruthless furrow drew." 

William Watson. 

It was by such lyrics as these that Burns purified the atmosphere 
of Scottish song. Before his time the melodies had been filled with 
" moral plague " against which, says Thomas Aird, " all the preach- 
ers in the land could not avails The only way was to put something 
better in its stead. This inestimable something better Burns gave us." 
This should be- borne in mind by all who may hear the moralizings 
of those would-be critics who sip the cup of scandal, and exultingly 
pass it around the board, crying, " What good critics are we ! " Mr. 
Stopford Brooke, in his introduction to the Golden Book of Coleridge, 
shows his indignation at such treatment of poets. " How wicked it 
has been ! It has turned men's eyes away from the permanent and 
noble in them to the transcient and the commonplace. The reverence 



[1773-1783] NOTES. 243 

due to their work has been lowered, and this is an injury to mankind. 
It is the worst of immoralities." Mrs. Oliphant savs, "The medicine 
of this fresh and simple nature was what sick poetry wanted to restore 
the noblest of the arts. No woman of that day, in any language (un- 
less it were the Katchens and Friederikas, by whom Goethe was edu- 
cating himself to all the varieties of emotion in the depths of Germany), 
had such exquisite homage offered to her as had Mary Morison, whoever 
she may have been; and it is a curious thing to realize that, in all the 
English-speaking races, there was not one but this Ayrshire rustic to 
whom that mystery of pure and perfect feeling was revealed." 

For a similar feeling from a singer who has often been called unim- 
passioned, see Wordsworth's Lucy Poei/is. 

'■ She dwelt among the untrodden ways." 
"Three years she grew in sun and shower." 
" Strange fits of passion have I known." 
" I travelled among unknown men." 

The Lucy of these poems is as unknown as the Mary of those of 

Burns. 

" But who his human heart has laid 

To Nature's bosom nearer ? 

Who sweetened toil Uke him, or paid 

To love a tribute dearer?" 

Whittier. 

*' As he was thus the poet of the poor, anxious, cheerful, working 
humanity, so he had the language of low life. He grew up in a rural 
district, and he has made the Lowland Scotch a Doric dialect of 
fame." — Emerson. 

WINTER, A DIRGE. 

{Kihuarnock Ed., i-jS6.) 

William Burns was now in failing health. The brothers grew 
flax on their farm; and Robert went to Irvine (1781) to learn to dress 
it, and thereby increase their profits. Irvine was frequented by a 
rough, adventurous class. Burns was depressed and melancholy. He 



244 NOTES. [1 773- 1 783] 

sought relaxation among sailors, and their friendship did much mis- 
chief. He was robbed by his partner in trade, his shop was burned, 
and he returned seven times more disheartened than before. 

This poem is the natural outcome of these experiences. Alluding 
to the subject of the poem, he says, " Such is the peculiar pleasure I 
take in the season of winter, more than the rest of the year. This, 
I believe, may be partly owing to my misfortunes giving my mind a 
melancholy cast. It is my best season for devotion; my mind is 
wrapt up in a kind of enthusiasm to Him who, in the pompous lan- 
guage of the Hebrew bard, ' walks on the wings of the wind.' In 
one of these seasons, just after a train of misfortune, I composed the 
following." 

Professor Veitch says, "We ought to be thankful to the poet for 
his precious susceptibilities, for thus the world came to know that 
there was a new link of communion between the pure soul of man 
and the universe of God." 



A PRAYER. 

{_Edi7ibitrgh Ed., 1787.) 

This poem belongs to the same period as the former, and carries 
a similar revelation. It was most unfortunate that such experiences 
came at a time when Burns was on the threshold of a great future. 
Hawthorne says in the Alarble Faun, " As these busts in the block 
of marble, so does our individual fate exist in the limestone of time. 
We fancy that we carve it out ; but its ultimate shape is prior to all 
our action." 

We do not know the human heart sufficiently well to pronounce 
judgment, but we can pity and be sympathetic. 

Not on the vulgar mass 

Called ' work,' must sentence pass, 

Things done, that took the eye and had the price; 

But all the world's coarse thumb 

And finger failed to plumb, 

So passed in making up the main account. 



[1773-1783] NOTES. 245 

Thoughts hardly to be packed 

Into a narrow act, 

Fancies that broke through language and escaped; 

All I could never be, 

All men ignored in me, 

This I was worth to God whose wheel the pitcher shaped." 

Browning. 

" Let those who never erred forget 
His worth, in vain bewailings ; 
Sweet Soul of Song! I own my debt 
Uncancelled by his failings." 

Whittier. 

Alluding to his broken spirit at this time, Burns says, " In this 
wretched state, 'the recollection of which makes me yet shudder, I 
hung my harp on the willow-trees, except in some lucid intervals, in 
one of which I composed this prayer." 

John Stuart Blackie says of this poem, "The man who could feel 
and write thus was not far from the best piety of the Psalms of 
David." 

" It is the religious element in Burns that fuses and kindles all the 
rest, that makes him the voice of the race at its best when he is at his 
best." — E. Charlton Black. 

" With shattering ire and withering mirth 
He smote each worthless claim to worth. 
The barren fig-tree cumbering earth 

He would not spare. 
Through ancient lies of proudest birth 
He drove his share." 

William Watson. 

Cf. Cowper, Olncy Hymns : — 

" God moves in a mysterious way." 
Cf. Chatterton: — 

" O God, whose thunder shakes the sky." 



246 NOTES. [1 773- 1 783] 

THE DEATH AND DYING WORDS OF POOR MAILIE. 
{Kiliiianiock Ed., 1786.) 

This is one of Burns's most characteristic poems, one in which his 
pecuHar inimitable moral humor first displayed itself. 

Gilbert gives us the circumstances attending the inception of the 
poem: " Robert had, partly by way of frolic, bought a ewe and two 
lambs from a neighbor, and she was tethered in a field adjoining the 
house at Lochlea. He and I were going out with our teams, and our 
two younger brothers to drive for us at midday, when Hugh Wilson, a 
curious-looking, awkward boy, clad in plaiding, came to us with much 
anxiety in his face with the information that the ew,e had entangled 
herself in the tether, and was lying in the ditch. Poor Mailie was set 
to rights; and when we returned from the plough in the evening, he 
repeated to me Death and Dying Words.'''' 

Carlyle says, " The humor of this piece is as fine as that of Sterne, 
yet altogether different, — original, peculiar, the humor of Burns." 

It is worthy of note that the idea of brotherhood with animal 
nature, which now is universal, began at the close of the last century 
with the two contemporaries, Cowper and Burns, and was carried to 
its finest illustration in Cowper's Task., Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, 
and Wordsworth's Hart Leap Well. 

L. 6. " Hughoc was an odd, glowran, gapin' callan " (R. B.). 

POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY. 
{Kilmarnock Ed., 1786.) 

The date of this poem is not known; but because of its relation to 
the preceding I've placed it here, notwithstanding it bears evidence 
of the poet's later freedom and force. 

These poems were probably suggested to Burns by Skinner's 
Ewie zui' the crookit horn. 

Mrs. Oliphant says, " Every influence around him entered into his 
soul. Its door stood open night and day to receive everything that 



[1784] NOTES. 247 

was weak and wanted succor, to admit everything that was lovely and 
noble. In all the world there was not a created thing shut out from 
his sympathy. He is like a god in his tender thoughtfulncss, his 
yearning for the welfare of all." 

Dr. Curivie says that in preparing the poem for the press Burns 
substituted the present sixth stanza for the following : — 

" She was nae gat o' runted rams, 
Wi' woo like goats, and legs like trams; 
She was the flower o' Fairlie lambs, 
A famous breed." 

Fairlie was the first place in Ayrshire where the poet's father in 
early manhood obtained employment as a farmer or gardener. 



1784. 

GREEN GROW THE RASHES, O. 

{^Edinburgh Ed., 17S7.) 

This poem appears in Burns's Covnnonplace Book under August, 
17S4, and was first printed in the Edinburgh Edition. " It was not 
printed in the Kilmarnock Edition," says Cunningham, " from a fear 
that the daring compliment to woman in tlie last verse might give 
offence. The rich incense of this strain was not offered at the shrine 
of high-born beauty by a poet pruned and starched and perfumed to 
fit him for the service, but by a homely, hearty, country hind, fresh 
from the plough, inspired only by the charms of the bonnie lasses 
around him." 

The last stanza was probably written while Burns was in Edin- 
burgh, as it does not appear in the manuscript. 

In his Coninionplace Book Burns wrote, " Young men are divided 
into grave and gay. The grave are those who are goaded on by the 
love of money, and whose darling wish is to make a figure in the 
world. The gay are the jovial lads whose heads are capable of all 
the towerings of genius, and whose hearts are warmed by all the deli- 



248 NOTES. [1784] 

cacies of feeling. This fragment will enable any one to determine 
which of these classes I belong to." 

Burns's son Robert used to repeat a stanza added by himself, 
which is of interest as related to the last stanza of the poem : — 

" Frae man's ain side the form was made 
That a' God's wark surpasses O; 
Man only Ices his ain heart's bluid 
Wha dearly Iocs the lasses O." 



EPISTLE TO DAVIE. 

{Kilmarnock Ed., 1786.) 

Burns's father died in February, 1784; but before this sad event 
happened, Gilbert and Robert had leased of Gavin Hamilton a small 
farm at Mossgiel in the parish of Mauchline. In evidence of Robert's 
determination to do his best, we have the following words of his: " I 
read farming books, I calculate crops, I attend markets; and, in short, 
in spite of the Devil, the world, and the flesh, I should have been 
a wise man; but the first year, from unfortunately buying bad seed, 
the second from a late harvest, we lost half our crops." 

From the autumn of 1784 to the autumn of 17S6, when he went to 
Edinburgh, "the fountains of poetry were unsealed within, and flowed 
forth in a continuous stream." It was during these years at Mossgiel 
that his genius reached its height, and that his frailties became most 
marked. 

When we consider the nature of Burns, and his environment, it seems 
but natural that love-poetry should be his earliest ■jvork, that it should 
be distinguished for depth of passion and lyric grace, and that when 
his life became more complex by reason of sad experience, the storm 
and stress should change not only the subject of his work, but the form 
and spirit as well. Variety is now the characteristic where before there 
had been almost monotony; and we have satirical poems, epistles, and 
poems descriptive of the habits of all animate life. 

In the face of this sadness and seriousness of life. Burns began to 
take the measure of his own nature, and to find solace in the compan- 



[1784] NOTES. 249 

ionship of those who had sympathy with him; hence the epistles which 
are so full of revelations of his real life, — biographical in their richness 
and completeness. 

The best known of his friends was David Sillar, the son of a Tarbol- 
ton farmer. He was schoolmaster at Irvine, and something of a poet, 
having published a volume of verse. One stanza of a poem addressed 
to Burns is as follows: — 

" Great numbers on this earthly ba' 
As soon as death gies them a ca' 
Permitted are to slide awa' 

And straight forgot. 
Forbid that this should ever fa' 

To be your lot." 

He was an associate of Burns in the Bachelors' Club. Gilbert says, 
" It was, I think, in the summer of 1784, when, in the interval of hard 
labor, Robert and I were weeding in the garden, that he repeated to 
me the principal part of the epistle. I was much pleased with it, and 
was of the opinion that it would bear being printed." 

Chambers's description of the farmhouse at Mossgiel is interesting 
as related to the work done there. " The house is very small, consist- 
ing of only two rooms, a but and a ben, as they are called in Scotland. 
Over these, reached by a trap stair, is a small garret, in which Robert 
and his brother used to sleep. Thither, when he returned from his 
day's work, the poet used to retire, and seat himself at a small deal 
table, lighted by a narrow skylight in the roof, to transcribe the verses 
which he had composed in the fields. His favorite time for composi- 
tion was at the plough." Mrs. Begg, the poet's sister, after the pul;li- 
cation of the poems, used to say that when the boys had gone to the 
fields she would climb to the little room and search the table-drawer for 
the verses. 

The Scotch people are worshippers of Burns; and a pilgrimage to the 
Land of Burns will be made interesting and instructive by the frequent 
memorials, and the zeal with which his countrymen vie with each other 
in doing justice to their darling poet. Monuments are erected at Ayr, 
Kilmarnock, Edinburgh, Dumfries, Dundee, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. 



250 NOTES. [1784] 

Naturally enough the largest number of memorials are at Ayr : the 
house in which he was born, the Tarn o' Shanter Inn, and the monu- 
ment, are familiar to most readers of the poet. In 1891 a statue was 
erected, and in 1895 the last of the four panels was put in place. This 
panel was the gift of the Scotch in America, and represented contribu- 
tors from twelve States. It was unveiled by Mr. Wallace Bruce, and 
represents the parting of Burns and Highland Mary. The other three 
panels represent Tam o' Shanter at the Auld Brig o' Doon, The Cot- 
ter's Saturday Night, and the Jolly Beggars. Dr. Burrell of New 
York made the presentation speech, in which he claimed that Burns 
was an American in love of political and religious liberty, and in his 
devotion to the poor and the oppressed. 

From Sidney Colvin's Letter's of Keats, we learn that Keats visited 
Ayrshire in 18 18. He wrote two sonnets there, one at the tomb of 
Burns, and the other at the birthplace. From the latter I quote : — 

" My pulse is warm with thine owa barley-bree, 
My head is Hght with pledging a great soul, 

My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see, 
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal; 

Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor, 
Yet can I ope the window-sash to find 

The meadow thou hast tramped o'er and o'er." 

ii. II. From Allan Ramsay. 

viii. 9. Meg : Margaret Orr. Davie did not win her. 

viii. 10. Ji^'^ii ■' Jean Armour. Burns first met this girl — the 
daughter of a Mauchline master-mason — at a ball with which the 
Mauchline Races closed in the year 1 784. In the same set danced 
Jean and the Ayrshire lad, when a dog came upon the floor and 
followed them about. This produced some merriment, which caused 
Burns to say that he wished any of the lassies loved him as well as 
his dog did. Soon after this, while Jean was bleaching clothes on 
the village green, Burns and his dog came along, and the latter ran 
across the clothes ; whereupon Jean asked the master if he had found 
any one to love him as much as his dog did. " This, of course," says 
Professor Blackie, " was an oblique female way of saying that, in point 



[1784] NOTES. 251 

of affection to such a master, she could vie with the dog. And at that 
moment the spark was kindled we have seen grow to a flame in the 
Epistle to Davie." The courtship continued through 1785, and early 
in 1786 they were clandestinely married. Cf. Fareivell to (he Banks 
of Ayr. 

Charles Kingsley, in comparing the faces of the four men whom 
he considered the most significant of modern times, — Shakespeare, 
Raffael, Goethe, and Burns, — wrote, " We question whether Burns 
be not, after all, if not the noblest, still the most lovable, the most like 
that which we should wish that of a teacher of men to be. Burns's 
face must have been a face like that of Joseph of old, of whom the 
rabbles relate that he was qiobbed by the Egyptian ladies whenever he 
walked the streets. The magic of that countenance, making Burns at 
once tempter and tempted, may explain many a sad story." 

SECOND EPISTLE TO DAVIE. 

{Sillar''s Poems, 1789.) 

The world has assented to the judgment of Gilbert in regard to the 
previous poem, — " that it would bear printing; " but in regard to this 
one it has had less satisfaction because of the somewhat carelessly free 
spirit manifested in parts of it. The two poems are good illustrations 
of the varying moods common to Burns. 

ii. I. One manuscript of the previous poem is headed, "An 
Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet, Lover, Ploughman, and Fiddler." 

iv. 4. Burns was a member of the fraternity of Masons. 

After the issue of Burns's first edition, Davie published a volume, 
and put this poem in as an introduction. 

ADDRESS TO THE DEIL. 

{Kilmarnock Ed., 1786.) 

There seems to be some uncertainty in regard to the date of this 
and the two previous poems. Some editors put them in 1 785, but 
the authority of Gilbert Burns ought to be conclusive in the matter. 
He says, " It was, I think, in the winter of 1784, as we were going 



252 NOTES, [1784] 

with cart for coals to the family fire (and I could yet point out the 
particular spot) that Robert first repeated to me the Address to the 
Deii:' 

In this poem we see the influence of "Jenny Wilson." " In my 
infant days," says Burns, " I owed much to an old woman who visited 
in the family remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. 
She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and 
songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, 
spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, can- 
traips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This 
cultivated the latent seeds of poesy, but had so strange an effect upon 
my imagination that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes 
keep a lookout in suspicious places." This is indeed a tribute to one 
of those unconscious elements in education which we in these days 
of methods and examinations may do well to consider. Wordsworth 
has said : — 

" Our childhood sits, 

Our simple childhood sits upon a throne 

Tliat hath more power than all the elements. 

Dumb yearnings, hidden appetites, over ours, 

And they Diust have their food." 

"Burns indeed lives in sympathy: his soul rushes forth into all 
realms of being; nothing that has existence can be indifferent to him. 
The very Deil he cannot hate with right orthodoxy." — Carlyle. 

Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson says, " His humor comes from him in 
a stream so deep and easy that I will venture to call him the best 
of humorous poets. He turns about in the midst to utter a noble 
sentiment, or a trenchant remark on human life, and the style changes 
and rises to the occasion." 

In 1793 Burns wrote to Miss B of York, " As I am a sturdy 

believer in the powers of darkness, I take these to be the doings of 
that old author of mischief, the Deil. It is well known that he has 
some kind of shorthand way of taking down our thoughts." 



[1785] NOTES. 253 

1785. 

HOLY WILLIE'S PRAYER. 

{Stewart and Meikle's Tracts, 1799O 

This was the anmis niirahiles in the life and work of Burns. The 
ease with which he threw off immortal poems would seem to confirm 
the opinion that he was a child of nature merely, and that he had not 
schooled himself by severe artistic discipline ; yet we know that he 
studied his models as carefully as did Dryden or Pope. Almost every 
one of his poems had its precedent, both in form and metre, in Ram- 
say, Fergusson, or the old ballads. "It is an excellent method in a 
poet," he says in one of his letters, " and what I believe every poet 
does, to place some favorite classic author, in his walks of study and 
composition, before him as a model." And again he writes, " I have 
no doubt but the knack, the aptitude to learn the muse's trade, is a 
gift bestowed by him ' who forms the secret bias of the soul ;' but I as 
surely believe that excellence in the profession is the fruit of industry, 
labor, attention, and pains." This is a good illustration of what Ruskin 
says about art and the artist, — that every great work of art is pro- 
duced without effort, and yet infinite labor and pains must go into the 
acquiring the habit, the disposition, the delight, of which art is the 
expression. 

Professor Minto says, " The old conception of the Ayrshire 
ploughman-poet undoubtedly was that his poetry had no historical 
connection ; that it stands apart as a unique phenomenon, entirely 
unconnected with the main stream of English poetry; that the peasant- 
poet owed everything to nature, and nothing to books; that he was a 
high-priest of poetry, without literary father or mother. . . . The 
theory does injustice to Burns as an artist, and is at variance with the 
plain facts of his life." — Literature of the Georgian Era, p. 343. 

Burns's art is "of the people, by the people, and for the people, a 
joy to the maker and the user." 

The Scottish people have always been noted for their disposition to 
see clearly and feel deeply on questions of Church and State. The- 
ological controversy has played a prominent and strikingly sii?nificant 



254 NOTES. [1785] 

part in their history. Finns would not have been a true son of Scotia 
had he not reflected both of these characteristics. In the struggle 
which arrayed New Lights against Old Lights, Liberals in matters of 
religion against Conservatives, he was to be found in the thick of the 
combat, wielding the broad-sword of humor and satire with startling 
effects. The Old Lights, in refusing to countenance anything like 
gayety, and by neglecting to discriminate between simple, innocent 
recreation and sin, had invited the contempt of all right-minded 
people. 

It has often been insinuated, if not openly asserted, that Burns was 
not a religious man; but the sympathetic reader of his poetry can find 
no ground for such implication, for he sees that it is charged with the 
spirit of our common religious nature. Professor Blackie rightly says, 
" Burns was not only a Scotsman breathing the religious atmosphere 
of the west, and brought up with pious care in a religious family, but 
he was personally a religious man to a degree which the cursory reader 
of his works would never suspect." " No poet since the Psalmist of 
Israel," says Andrew Lang, "ever gave the world more assurance 
of a man. Burns was — 

'Dowered with the hate of hate, 
The love of love, the scorn of scorn.' 

He had said, — 

' My name is Fun, your crony dear, 

The nearest friend ye hae ; 
And this is Superstition here, 
And that's Hypocrisy.'" 

Burns's friends, Aiken and Hamilton, had both incurred the cen- 
sure of the Old Lights, the latter because he had allowed his servant 
to do some simple necessary work on Sunday, and for the offence 
was denied the right of baptism for his child. He appealed to the 
Presbytery of Ayr, and was opposed by a priest, Father Auld, and an 
elder by the name of William Fisher. Hamilton had Robert Aiken 
as counsel, and he won the cause. It was after this defeat that the 
muse heard Holy Willie at his devotions. Burns could not stand by 
and see men who had befriended him in time of need treated as 



[1785] NOTES. 255 

culprits by such hypocrites as this Fisher, who strained at gnats and 
swallowed camels; he misapplied the alms money, and death came 
to him in a ditch, the result of a drinking bout. Allan Cunningham 
says, "It is related by John Richmond of Mauchline, that when he 
was a clerk in Gavin Hamilton's office, Burns came in one morning, 
and said, ' I have just been making a poem; and if you will write it, 
John, I'll repeat it.' He accordingly repeated I/oly IViilic's Prayer. 
Hamilton came in, read it, and ran laughing with it to Robert Aiken; 
and he was delighted with it." 

This poem fell like a bombshell in the camp of the Old Lights. 
Burns says, " It alarmed the Kirk Session so much that they held 
several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any 
of it might be pointed against profane rhymers." The battle was 
continued at intervals, until Burns had sent volley after volley of the 
hot shot of brilliant and scathing satire against this decayed theological 
fortress. 

Professor Blackie thinks that these productions may have done harm 
to Burns, by estranging from him some truly reverent people, but that 
they did much good to the mass of his countrymen, because they were 
the means of reforming many abuses. 

By such attacks upon the ecclesiastical stronghold as are revealed 
in this and the two following poems. Burns became the admiration of 
some and the terror of others. Divines feared to preach before such 
an auditor. 

The Ettrick Shepherd says, " As a result of these poems, it was 
felt by all that national manners were once more in the hands of a 
national poet." " Who can praise them too highly,'* says Andrew 
Lang, " who admire in them too much the humor, the scorn, the 
wisdom, the unsurpassed energy and courage? " 

" We cannot but rejoice," says Stopford Brooke, " at the way 
in which he flayed alive William Fisher, ' The Holy Willie ' of the 
poem; his life was as immoral as his death was vile." 

If Burns could not always distinguish between evil and the doer 
of evil, he surely intended to hate only the hateful act and the motive 
that made it thus. 

Charles Kingsley says, "Consider what contradiction between faith 



256 NOTES. [1785] 

and practice must have met the^eyes of the man before he could write 
with the same pen — and one as honestly as the other — llie Cotter^ s 
Saturday A'ight and Holy lVillie''s Prayer. In these poems of his is 
to be found a truer history than any anecdote can supply of the things 
which happened to himself, and of the most notable things that went 
on in Scotland between 1759 and 1796." 

Burns's love of God, of man, and nature, of life in all its simple 
and rich manifestation, his hatred of all pretence, all deceit, all moral 
sanctimony, — these are the things which the world will never cease to 
praise. 

" Not Latimer, not Luther, struck more telling blows against false 
theology than did the brave singer. The Confession of Augsburg, the 
Declaration of Independence, the French Rights of Man, are not more 
weighty documents in the history of freedom than the songs of Burns." 
— Emerson. 

Mr. Douglas says, " These poems comprise a sheaf which some 
of the admirers of the poet's softer moods would fain pluck out, and 
cast like tares into the oven. They fail to see that, for good or ill, 
they represent as essential a phase of his genius as the lighter charac- 
ters of Catiterbury Tales do that of Chaucer. Burns's religious satires 
are an inalienable part of his work." 

'* Holy lVillie''s Prayer is a satirical crucifixion, — slow, lingering, 
inexorable. He hated Hypocrisy, he tore her holy robe; and for the 
outrage Hypocrisy did not forgive him while he lived, nor has it yet 
learned to forgive him." — Alexander Smith. 

" Holy Willie'' s Prayer is appalling reading; but the opening stan- 
zas, the most terrible of all, are neither more nor less than a fearless 
and unshrinking statement of the doctrine of salvation as it was under- 
stood by the party satirized." — Walker. 

" The Scotland of Burns was as Puritan in principle as the ideal 
Israel of the Prophets, and as lax in practice as the ideal Florence 01 
Bocaccio." — Lang. 



[1785] NOTES. 257 

ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID. 

{Edinburgh Ed., 1787.) 

In March, 1784, Burns wrote to Mr. Riddel, " I have often noticed, 
in the course of my experience of human life, that every man, even the 
worst, has something good about him, though very often nothing else 
than a happy temperament of constitution inclining him to this or that 
virtue. For this reason no man can say in what degree any other per- 
son, besides himself, can be with strict justice called wicked. Let any 
one, of the strictest character for regularity of conduct amongst us, ex- 
amine impartially how many vices he has never been guilty of, not 
from any care or vigilance, but from want of opportunity, or some ac- 
cidental circumstance intervening; how many of the weaknesses of 
mankind he has escaped because he was out of the line of such temp- 
tation; and how much he is indebted to the world's good opinion, be- 
cause the world does not know it all. I say, any man who can thus 
think will scan the failings, nay, the faults and crimes, of mankind 
around him with a brother's eye." 

This is, indeed, common sense, which, after all, is the basis of 
ethics. It is the key-note in the modern poets, — Wordsworth, Ten- 
nyson, and Browning. 

" This is pre-eminently one of those poems whose lines become 
' mottoes of the heart.' " — W. C. Douglas. 

Professor Shairp says, " Who on the text, ' He that is without sin 
among you, let him first cast a stone,' ever preached such a sermon as 
Burns in his Address to the Unco Gziid^^l 

In Rob the Ranter he had stated his ethical creed : — 

" The heart aye's the part aye 
That keeps us richt or wrang." 

Alluding to his father's teaching, he says: — 

" He bade me act a manly part, 
Though T had ne'er a farthing, O, 
For without an honest, manly heart 
No man was worth regarding, O." 



258 NOTES. [1785] 

vii., viii. " Nothing can be better," says Stopford Brooke, " than 
his Add}-ess to the Unco Gtiid, oi' The Rigidly Righteous ; these Hnes 
are steeped in the spirit of Christianity." 

Charles Kingsley, in speaking of Burns's honesty and frankness 
about sacred things, says, " It has been with the workingmen who 
read him a passport for the rest of his writings; it has allured them to 
listen to him when he spoke of high and holy things, while they would 
have turned with a distrustful sneer from the sermon of the sleek and 
comfortable minister." 

" Burns had a passionate faith in God and man. He sinned, but he 
believed. He was not a good man, but he was a very real one. Like 
David, though a sinner, he was a preacher, and not merely a literary 
artist." — E. Charlton Black. 

Lowell says that, better than to write what will reach only the few, 
it is — 

" To write some earnest verse or line, 
Which, seeking not the praise of art, 
Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine 
In the untutored heart." 

vii. 5. To this verse Robert Louis Stevenson adds: — 
" One? Alas ! I fear every man and woman of us is ' greatly dark ' 
to all their neighbors, from the day of birth until death removes them, 
in their greatest virtues as well as in their saddest faults; and we, who 
have been trying to read the character of Burns, may take home the 
lesson, and be gentle in our thoughts." 

In a letter to Mr. Cunningham in 1792 Burns wrote, " Will you or 
can you tell me why a sectarian turn of mind has always a tendency to 
narrow and illiberalize the heart? " 

MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN. 

{Kihnarnock Ed., 1786.) 

Burns everywhere reveals his indebtedness to his early teachers; 
and in this poem it is to his mother, whom he is said to have resembled 
in " bright eyes and intelligent looks," in ease and grace of manner. 



[1785] NOTES. 259 

She was wont to interest her children by singing to them old ballads, 
and by telling them old tales of which her memory was full. The one 
which Burns listened to with the most intense feeling was The Life 
and Age of Man, which began with: — 

" Upon the sixteen hundred year 

Of God, and fifty-three, 
Frae Christ was born, who bought us dear, 

As writings testifie, 
On January the sixteenth day, 

As I did lie alone, 
With many a sigh and sob did say, 

Ah ! man was made to mourn." 

That Burns in his twenty-sixth year returned to this old tune, and 
enforced a moral from a bit of his own experience, is another striking 
tribute to the unconscious forces in his education. 

The incident out of which the poem grew was the following, given 
in The Land of Biwns : — 

" Near the old bridge of Barskimming Mill lived a decrepit old 
man named Kemp. He had a trim, sonsie daughter Kate, who had 
attracted this ' Laureate of Love.' One evening he came from Mauch- 
line to see her, and found the old man mourning because his cow was 
lost. Kate had gone in search of the stray; so Burns started after 
Kate, and on his way met a young man who had come upon the same 
errand, — to see Kate. Burns said to him, ' Baith she and the cow's 
lost, and the auld man is perfectly wild at the want o' them.' They 
both then joined in the search; and Burns's companion noticed that 
he was very sober for a time, when suddenly he turned and walked 
rapidly toward Mauchline. The next time they met, Burns said, ' I 
owe you an apology for my silence during our walk, and for leaving 
you so abruptly.' — ' Oh,' said he, ' Robin, there is no occasion, for I 
supposed some subject had occurred to you, and that you were think- 
ing, and perhaps composing something on it.' — 'You were right, 
Miller,' said the poet; ' and I will now read you what was chiefly the 
work of that evening.' And he read ]\hin was IlLide to jMonrn. 
What an admirable illustration of literature as the child of life! 
Burns began his Commonplace Book (1783) with this comment upon 



260 NOTES. [1785] 

the relation of his poetry to his life: " As I am but little indebted to 
scholastic education, and bred at the plough-tail, my performances 
must be strongly tinctured with my unpolished, rustic way of life ; but 
it may be some entertainment to a curious observer of human nature, 
to see how a ploughman thinks and feels under the pressure of love, 
ambition, anxiety, grief, with the like cares and passions, which, how- 
ever diversified by the modes and manners of life, operate pretty much 
alike on all the species." 

"Through busiest street and loneliest glen 
Are felt the flashes of his pen. 
He rules 'mid winter snows, and when 

Bees fill their hives ; 
Deep in the general heart of men 
His power survives." 

Wordsworth. 

" For 'mid an age of dust and dearth, 
Once more had bloomed immortal worth. 
There in the strong splenetic North, 

The spring began. 
A mighty mother had brought forth 
A mighty man." 

W. Watson. 

"To the wretched, out of the Bible there is no such solace as the 
poetry of Burns." — Alexander Smith. 

EPISTLE TO JOHN LAPRAIK. 

(^Kihnarnock Ed., 17S6.) 

The occasion of this song was simple and natural. It was the cus- 
tom of the peasantry of Scotland to gather for social festivity at each 
other's houses. The women carried their rock or distaff, and com- 
bined work with their gossip. Gilbert Burns says, " It was at one of 
these rockings, at our house, when they had twelve or fifteen young 
people with their rocks, that Lapraik's song beginning, ' When I 
upon thy bosom lean,' was sung, and we were informed who was 
the author. Upon this Robert wrote his first Epistle to Lapraik.'''' 
As in New England the farmer's were wont to gather in the fall 



[1785] NOTES. 261 

for husking their neighbors' corn or for an apple-paring, so wool was 
spun for the neighbors in Scotland. Lapraik was a lover of the Muse, 
who lived at Dalfram, near Muikirk; but, having lost his property, 
Burns advised him to publish his poems. They were printed by John 
Wilson, Kilmarnock, 1788. Burns dressed up Lapraik's poem here 
alluded to, and sent it to Johnson's Museum. 

" Since the time of Burns," says Stopford Brooke, " our poetry has 
not only been the poetry of man and of nature, but also of passion. 
And it sprang clean and clear out of the natural soil of a wild heath, 
not out of a cultivated garden." 

Mr. Ernest Rhys, in objecting to the judgments upon Burns given by 
Carlyle, Shairp, and Arnold (especially to the opinion of Arnold that 
Burns was not a classic), says, " Not a classic? Then the term can 
avail us little, I imagine, in lyrical poetry. If passion, fancy, wit, im- 
agination, irresistibly musical, set to the lyric note by a born master of 
words, cannot procure that praise, then the lyric art must exist for other 
ends, and the term be confined to the schools." 

xiv. I. Allan: Allan Ramsay. 

xviii. I. Mauchline race : The race-course at Mauchline was not 
far from Burns' s farm. 



TO WILLIAM SIMPSON. 

{Kilinaruock Ed., 17S6.) 

William Simpson was a schoolmaster in the village of Ochiltree, 
and was one of the " rhyming crew," more deserving of praise than 
many whom Burns encouraged. 

iii. 3. Gilbertjield : William Hamilton of Gilbertfield. 

iv. I. O Fergusson : Cf. Inscription on the tombstone of the 
Poet Fergusson. 

vi. I. A2ild Coila : The district of Kyle. 

viii. 5. WJdle Ir^oin^ Lugar, Ayr, and Doon. " I am hurt," 
Burns says in his memoranda, " to see the other towns, rivers, woods, 
and haughs of Scotland immortalized in song, while my dear native 
country, the ancient bailleries of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham, have 



262 NOTES. [1785] 

never had one Scottish poet of eminence to make the fertile banks of 
Irvine, the romantic woodlands and sequestered scenes of Ayr, and the 
heathy, mountainous source and winding sweep of the Doon, emulate 
Tay, Forth, Ettrick, and Tweed." It is everywhere evident to the 
careful reader of Burns that he desired, above all things, to make the 
Lowlands as renowned in song as the Highlands had been. 

xviii. 6. Robert Burns. Mr. Douglas says that this is the solitary 
instance of the poet writing his name with one syllable prior to April 
14, 17S6. 

" He keeps himself throughout," says Stopford Brooke, " to 
Scottish subjects ; his scenery is entirely Scottish, his love of liberty 
concentrates itself round Scottish struggles ; his muse is wholly un- 
trammelled. For Scotland's glory and Scotland's beauty 

* I kittle up my rustic reed, 
It gies me ease.' 

And nothing can be better or brighter than the lines in which he ex- 
presses this written to W. Simpson." 

" In his poetry is to be read clearly the lyric chronicle of all that 
went to make up the most moving tale of Robert Burns, which is surely 
to be read, if at all, only with sympathy and tears." — Mr. Ernest 
Rhys. 

TO THE REV. JOHN M'MATH. 
{Cromek, 180S.) 

It was fortunate that the New Lights had such a champion as Burns, 
— a man who would not " give up to party what was meant for man- 
kind." He did not indulge in personal abuse for the love of it, but 
only when it was the sole means of defending those whom he loved, and 
who M'ere persecuted for having opinions of their own. His rallying to 
the support of the Rev. John M'Math is a notable instance of his love 
of justice. M'Math was a preacher of the New Light, and was often 
complimented in Burns's poetry. If the spirit here breathed is not that 
of the Sermon on the Mount, I do not know where to find it. 

vi. I, 2. These lines were repeated in the dedication of the poet's 
works to Gavin Hamilton. 



[1785] NOTES. 263 

ix. In a rule of the Bachelors' Club we find the same sentiment : 
" No haughty, self-conceited person, who looks upon himself as supe- 
rior to the rest of the club, and especially no mean-spirited, worldly 
mortal, whose only wish is to heap up money, shall upon any pretence 
whatever be admitted." 

xi. In his Commonplace Book, October, 1785, we find this: " Let 
my pupil as he tenders his own peace, keep up a warm, regular inter- 
course with the Deity." 

A recent letter from Dr. Edward Everett Hale contains the follow- 
ing: " Burns was distinctly and definitely a religious man, and could 
not have written much which he did, had he not been so." 

Mr. Ernest Rhys, in his little volume. The Lyrical Poems of Burns, 
says, " It has been the common responsibility of his biographers to 
point out how differently he might have lived, how much more wisely 
he might have ordered his days. More wisely, perhaps, but not so 
well. There is a diviner economy in these things than we have come 
to allow." 

" He came when poets had forgot 
How rich and strange the human lot ; 
How warm the tints of hfe ; how hot 

Are Love and Hate ; 
And what makes Truth divine, and what 
Makes manhood great." 

W. Watson. 

•' I stand where I am set apart to minister to men in sacred things; 
but I feel as though Robert Burns stood on the same level, and was or- 
dained of God to be a minister of sacred things to the human race." — 
Henry Ward Beecher. 



TO JAMES SMITH. 

{Kilmarnock Ed., 17S6.) 

James Smith, a merchant in Mauchline, was a man of taste and 
good sense, as were most of the friends to whom Burns addressed epis- 
tles. In 1788 Burns writes to him for one of his best printed shawls, 
saying that he wishes the first present to his wife should be the work of 



264 NOTES. [1785] 

one whose friendship he counted on as a " life-rent lease." Smith 
died a few years before Burns. 

In this poem we have the first intimation of Burns's intention to 
print his works. It was about this time that he took upon himself the 
name of Poet. " He wrote it in his books, and wrought it in his 
rhymes," says Cunningham. He changed the spelling of his name 
from Burness to Burns because he preferred the shorter form. 

If we compare this " exhilarating enumeration of the enjoyments of 
youth and their successive extinction in age," with the poems of Words- 
worth written in youth, we find the fundamental difference in the nature 
of the two poets, — the one intense and fervid, giving his passion the 
loose rein; the other intense and contemplative, with passion under the 
power of the will. 
. Where the one sings — 

" When ance life's day draws near the gloamin,' 
Then farewell vacant, careless roamin' ; " 

the other believing that 

"All that is at all, 
Lasts ever, past recall." 

sings — 

" So was it when my life began ; 
So is it now I am a man ; 
So be it when I shall grow old, 
Or let me die." 

Each singer sounds his own note, clear and strong, in the great 
symphony; and each is necessary for the complete chorus. 

Allan Cunningham thinks this epistle is the best of all for "the 
singular ease of the verse; the moral dignity of one passage, the wit 
and humor of a second, the elegance of compliment in a third, and 
the life which animates the whole." He says that stanza xiv. was 
frequent on the lips of Burns in his dark days. 

"How much better to understand a poet like Burns, whose heart 
was great, too great, indeed, for its narrow environment, — to under- 
stand him, than take to condemning him for what his condition and 



[1785] NOTES. 265 

opportunities being what they were, he could no more help than the 
fire can refrain from kindling." — Ernest Rhys. 

xxiii. I. Dempster. George Dempster, a distinguished patriot 
and M.P. 

"SEE! THE SMOKING BOWL BEFORE US." 

FROM THE JOLLY BEGGARS. 
{^Stewart and Meikle^s Tracts, 1799.) 

The occasion of the musical drama, The .Jolly Beggars, again 
brings Burns and his friend Smith before us, now in a situation such 
as Shakespeare would have delighted in, and which we are sure our 
poet enjoyed to the utmost; for he had, like Shakespeare, a divine 
rage for humanity in every shape, and liked to have a taste of it in all 
its forms. 

The two cronies were walking by Poosie Nansie's alehouse one even- 
ing, when they heard the sound of " meikle fun and jokin." On 
entering, they found a company of wandering vagrants assembled, — 

" Wi' quaffing and laughing, 
They ranted and they sang; 
Wi' jumping and thumping, 
The vera girdle rang." 

The company was composed of a maimed soldier and his female 
companion, a Highland beggar's consort, a wandering ballad-singer, 
and other such characters. Burns was delighted with the scenes in 
which each character acted well his part, and a few days afterwards 
he wrote 77/^ Jolly Beggars. Scott called it superior to anything of 
its kind in English poetry for "humorous description and nice dis- 
crimination of character;" and this song, the concluding ditty of the 
"cantata," pleased him very much, as it set the company "above all 
sublunary terrors of jails and whipping-posts." 'The Jolly Beggars was 
not printed during Burns's life; it first saw the light in a small volume 
in 1799, and was in 180 1 printed in Glasgow, under the title of Toems 
Ascribed to Robert Burns, the Ayrshire Bard.'''' 

Matthew Arnold says, " 77/6' Jolly Beggars has a breadth, truth, 



266 NOTES. 1785] 

and power which make ihe famous scene in Auerbach's cellar, of 
Goethe's Faust, seem artificial and tame beside it, and which are only 
matched by Shakespeare and Aristophanes." 

"The manuscript is now in possession of Mr. Gilbert Burns, a 
nephew of the poet, Knockmaroon Lodge, County Dublin." — W. C. 
Douglas. 

" So powerful, so commanding, is the movement of that beggar's 
chorus, that mcthinks it unconsciously echoed in the brain of our 
greatest living poet when he conceived the Vision of Sin. You shall 
judge for yourself. 

' Drink to lofty hopes that cool, — 

Visions of a perfect state ; 
Drink we, last, the pubHc fool, 
Frantic love and frantic hate. 

Drinl: to Fortune, drink to Chance, 

While we keep a little breath ! 
Drink to lieavy Ignorance, 

Hob and nob witli brother Death.' 

Is not the movement the same, though the modern speaks a wilder 
recklessness? " — Lang. 

Mauchline, a typical Scotch village, is a place full of associations of 
Burns. Here was the scene of many a royal festa of the poet and his 
cronies. The two places of interest are the church, and near it Poosie 
Nansie's alehouse, — the one associated with Holy Willie, and the 
other with the Jolly Beggars. If we stay in this place a few days we 
shall see what Hawthorne saw a halt century ago, "A spectacle of 
Scotch manners identical with what Burns has given so often, a rol- 
licking crowd gathered at the alehouse, — 

' Ae night, at e'en, a merry core 
O' randie gangrel bodies 
In Poosie Nansie's held the splore, 
To drink their orra duddies ; ' 



or,— 



' Roads clad frae side to side, 
Wi' monie a wearie bodie, 

In droves that day,' 



going to the Holy Fair." 



[1785 j A'OTES. 267 

It is but a mile from Mauchline to the farm at Mossgiel ; and if we 
wish to see what obstacles lay in the way of the young farmer, we have 
only to visit this place. The buildings are not attractive in themselves, 
but their situation is somewhat picturesque. Not far away is the field 
where he turned down the daisy, and that other field where the " wee 
cow'rin tim'rous beastie " was so unceremoniously deprived of house 
and home. — Cf. W. Jolly, Burns at Mossgiel. 



HALLOWEEN. 

{Kihnarnock Ed., 1786.) 

One of the quaintest and most characteristic of the old Scottish 
festivals is that of Halloween, the last night of the harvest season. 

Nothing could reveal so clearly as does this poem the nature of the 
peasantry of the west of Scotland as it manifests itself on the night 
so prophetic with charm and spell, so ominous with its forebodings, so 
fateful in its witchery. 

" Of a.' the festivals we hear, 
Frae Han'sel Munday till New Year, 
There's few in Scotland lield mair dear, 

For mirth I ween, 
Or 3'et can boast o' better cheer, 
Than Halloween." 

"The following poem will by many readers be well enough under- 
stood; but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the man- 
ners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are 
added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that 
night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. 
The fashion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history 
of human nature, in its rude state, in all ages and nations ; and it may 
be some entertainment to a philosophic mind if any such should honor 
the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it, among the more 
unenlightened in our own." — R. B. 

*'It is thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other 
mischief-making beings are all abroad on their baneful midnight 



268 NOTES. [1785] 

errands; particularly those aerial people, the fairies, are said on that 
night to hold a grand anniversary." — R. B. 

i. 2. Cassilis Do7unans : "Certain little, romantic, rocky green 
hills, in the neighborhood of the ancient seat of the Earls of Cassilis." 

— R. B. 

i. 5. Coleaii : "A noted cavern near Colean-house, called the 
Cove of Colean; which, as well as Cassilis Downans, is famed in 
country story for being a favorite haunt of fairies." — R. B. 

ii. 4. Cai'rick speiir : "The famous family of that name, the 
ancestors of Robert, the great deliverer of his country, were Earls of 
Carrick." — R. B. 

iv. 2. Stocks: "The first ceremony of Halloween is pulling each 
a stock, or plant of kail. They must go out hand in hand, with eyes 
shut, and pull the first they meet with. Its being big or little, straight 
or crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of 
all their spells, — the husband or wife. 

v. 5-10. If any yird, or earth, stick to the root, that is tocher, 
or fortune ; and the taste of the custock, that is the heart of the stem, 
is indicative of the natural temper and disposition. Lastly, the stems, 
or to give them their ordinary appellation, the I'luits, are placed some- 
where above the head of the door; and the Christian names of the 
people whom chance brings into the house are, according to the priority 
of placing the j-iints, the names in question." — R. B. 

vi. 2. Stalks f' corn: "They go to the barnyard, and pull each, 
at three different times, a stalk of o?ts. If the third stalk wants the 
iap-picklc, that is, the grain at the top of the stalk, the party in ques- 
tion will come to the marriage-bed anything but a maid." — R. B. 

vi. 8. Fatise- House : "When the corn is in a doubtful state, it 
being too green or wet, the stack-builder, by means of old timber, 
etc., makes a large apartment in his stack, with an opening in the side 
which is fairest exposed to the wind: this he calls a Fause- House. ^^ 

— R. B. 

vii. I. Nits : " Burning the nuts is a famous charm. They name 
the lad and the lass to each particular nut, as they lay them in the fire; 
and accordingly as they burn quietly together, or start from beside one 
another, the course and issue of the courtship will be." — R. B, 



[1785] NOTES. ■ 269 

xi. 8. Bliie-cliie. " Whoever would, with success, try this spell, 
must strictly observe these directions: Steal out, all alone, to the kiln, 
and darkling, throw into \\\fi pot a clue of blue yarn; wind it in a new 
clue off the old one, and towards the latter end something will hold 
the thread; demand Wha hands? i.e., who holds? an answer will be 
returned from the kiln-pot, by naming the Christian and surname of 
your future spouse." — R. B. 

xiii. " Take a candle and go alone to a looking-glass ; eat an apple 
before it, and some traditions say you should comb your hair all the 
time; the face of your conjugal companion to be will be seen in the 
glass, as if peeping over your shoulder." — R. B. 

xiv. Skelpie-lif/imer's face : "A term for female scolding." — R. B. 

xvi. *' Steal out alone and sow hemp-seed, harrowing it in with 
anything you can find. Repeat all the while, ' Hemp-seed, I sow thee ; 
and him that is to be my true love come after me and pou thee.' 
Look over your left shoulder, and you will see the person invoked 
pulling hemp." — R. B. 

xx.-xxi. " This charm must likewise be performed unperceived and 
alone. You go to the l>a}-n and open both doors, taking them off the 
hinges if possible; for there is danger that the being about to appear 
may shut the doors, and do you some mischief. Then take that instru- 
ment used in winnowing the corn, which in our country dialect we call 
a wecht, and go through all the attitudes of letting down corn against 
the wind. Repeat it three times; and the third time an apparition will 
pass through the barn, in at the windy door and out at the other, hav- 
ing both the figure in question and the appearance or retinue marking 
the employment or station in life." — R. B. 

xxii. " Take an opportunity of going, unnoticed, to a Bean-stack, 
and fathom it three times round. The last fathom of the last time you 
will catch in your arms the appearance of your future conjugal yoke 
fellow."— R. B. 

xxiii. "You go out, one or more (for this is a social spell), to 
a south running spring or rivulet, where 'three lairds' lands meet,' 
and dip your left shirt sleeve. Go to bed in sight of a fire, and hang 
your wet sleeve before it to dry. Lie awake, and somewhere near 
midnight an apparition, having the exact figure of the grand object in 



270 NOTES. [1785] 

question, will come and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the other side of 
it." — R. B. 

xxiv. "The finest descriptive passage within small compass to be 
found in poesy." — Douglas. 

xxvi. "Take three dishes: put clean water in one, foul water in 
the other, and leave the third empty; blindfold a person, and lead him 
to the hearth where the dishes are ranged; he (or she) dips the left 
hand : if by chance, in the clean water, the future husband or wife will 
come to the bar of matrimony a maid ; if in the foul, a widow ; if in the 
empty dish, it foretells with equal certainty no marriage at all. It 
is repeated three times, and every time the arrangement of the dishes 
is altered." — R. B. 

xxvi. 6. J\Iar''s-year : In 171 5 the Earl of Mar headed an insur- 
rection. 

xxvii. 5. " Sowens, with butter instead of milk to them, is always 
the Halloiveen Supper.''' — R. B. 

This poem is modelled after Fergusson's Leith Races. 

"Our Halloween had passed and repassed, in rude awe and laugh- 
ter, since the era of the Druids; but no Theocritus till Burns discerned 
in it the materials of a Scottish idyl." — Carlyle. 

" Here he has sketched the Ayrshire peasantry as they appeared in 
their homes of merriment, painted with a few vivid strokes a dozen 
distinct pictures of country lads and lasses, sires and dames." — Shairp. 

Cf. Collins's Ode On the Popular Superstitions of the Scottish 
Highlands. 

TO A MOUSE. 
{Kiltnarnock Ed., 1786.) 

One day when Burns was ploughing with a servant by the name of 
Blane, he turned up this mouse's nest. As the mouse ran away " o'er 
the stibble," Blane, who held the pettle, or plough-cleaning instru- 
ment, started after it; but Burns stopped him, saying, " He's done ye 
no harm." On the evening following this event Burns composed the 
poem, and woke Blane in the middle of the night to recite it to him. 

No poem of Burns's so well reveals his loving and tender nature. 



[1785] NOTES. 271 

It has never received anything but the highest praise; it is inimitable 
in its pathos and graceful movement. Ever since Burns and Cowper 
sang their songs of love for their dependent associates, men have real- 
ized more and more that these beings live a life in which they have a 
share, and have rights which they are bound to respect. 

" Every poet who, like Burns, increases that larger tenderness of 
the heart which not only loves men, but hates to give pain to the lower 
animals, is, so far at least, religious in his poetry." — Stopford 
Brooke. 

There have been no changes in this poem. " It seems to have 
issued perfect from the mint of the author's mind when he suddenly 
stopped the ploughshare's progress on observing the tiny creature's 
escape across the rig." — W. C. Douglas. 



THE VISION. 

DUAN FIRST. 
{Kilmarnock Ed., 17S6.) 

We are certain from this poem that Burns had discovered him- 
self long before the critic-folk saw that a new poetic star had risen, — 
a star that, "touching earth," was destined "to glorify its humble 
birth with matchless beams." As life in its outward environment 
became more and more burdensome and the fruits of his husbandry 
became more and more uncertain, there seemed to be a witness within 
that the effect of his life would be to make his native land — 

" Lov'd at home, rever'd abroad." 

It was while brooding upon these things that light came to him by 
the ingle-nook of the peasant's cot. Ever since that time this little 
room, with its single window and meagre furnishing, has been a spot 
sacred to lovers of poetry. 

i. 2. Curlers : Those playing on the ice a game not unlike our 
hockey. 

X. I. Quoted from To yames Smithy P- 51- 



2/2 NOTES. [1785] 

X. 5-6. " This couplet was a great favorite of Dr. Chalmers's." — 
Douglas. 

xi. 3. Bon7iie yean : When Burns was in trouble with the Armours 
he changed this to My Bess I zveen, but afterward restored yean. 

XV. 2. Ancient Borough: "Ayr, chartered in thirteenth century." 
— R. B. 

xvii. 2. A race: "The Wallaces." — R. B. 

xviii. I. Savionr : Sir William Wallace. 

xviii. 2. Richardton : " Adam Wallace, of Richardton, cousin to 
Sir William Wallace." —R. B. 

xviii. 3. Chief of Sark : "Wallace, laird of Craigie, who fought 
under Douglass in the famous battle on the banks of the Sark, 1448." 
— R. B. 

xix. I. Pictish shad: " Coilus, king of the Picts, from whence 
the name Kyle is said to come." — R. B. 

xxi. 2. Sire and Son : Dr. Matthew Stewart, the celebrated mathe- 
matician, and his son Dugald Stewart, the metaphysician, who had a 
villa at Catrine on the Ayr. 

xxii. I. Brydoii^s brave Ward : Colonel Fullerton, who travelled 
under care of Patrick Brydone. Last six stanzas were not in first 
edition. 

DUAN SECOND. 

xii. I. Coila : " Burns took this idea from the Scota of Alexander 
Ross, a Mearns poet." — A. C. 

Coila. "One of the finest of visions which ever dawned on poet's 
eye." — J. Veitch. 

xii. 3. The branch of Campbells. — W. C. Douglas. 

"A thousand times before now he had been so disquieted, and 
found no comfort. But the hour had come of self-revelation, and 
he knew that on earth his name was to live forever." — Christo- 
pher North. 

Painters and sculptors have attempted to represent their ideal of 
this lovely visitor. 

xix. 3-6. "This shows that Burns's poems had been widely circu- 
lated in manuscript before publication." — W. C. Douglas. 



[1785] NOTES. 273 

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 

{Kihnarnock Ed., 1786.) 

It would be a very difficult task to reflect in these notes the abun- 
dant and generous praise of this great poem, certainly the best known 
of all the poet's work. No one has ever alluded to it but in praise 
both of its spirit and form. It is majestic in its movement and holy in 
its associations. Of its inception Gilbert says, " Robert had frequently 
remarked to me that he thought there was something peculiarly vener- 
able in the phrase, 'Let us worship God,' used by a decent, sober 
head of a family, introducing family worship. The hint of the plan 
and title of the poem were taken from Fergusson's Farvier^s Iiigle.^^ 

Professor Shairp thinks the religion of the poem was that of the 
poet's father, and not his own; but with this we cannot agree. We 
insist that Burns was a genuinely religious man, but that he hated 
shams in religion so much he often discredited what was sincere in 
his own feelings. That he went sadly astray we are ready to acknowl- 
edge, but not that he was irreligious. Doubtless Christ was not very 
attractive to him as revealed by the rigid Calvinist preacher of that 
time. 

This tribute to his father is merited by all that we know of his life 
of love and devotion : — 

y "The pitying heart that felt for human woe; 

The dauntless heart that fear'd no human pride ; 

The friend of man, to vice alone a foe; 

For e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side." 

The ancestors of William Burness were men of character, education, 
and position; they were deeply religious and nobly patriotic, — stanch 
Jacobites. They were tenant-farmers of George Keith, the Earl Mare- 
schal of Scotland. They were natives of Kinkardinshire, or the Mearns, 
and in 171 5 they joined the Mar men in the Jacobite rising. 

Dunotta Castle, the fortress of the Keiths, was almost impregnable 
at the time of the Covenanters; there wScott laid the scene of Old A/or- 
iality. 

In the old churchyard at Glenbervie, not far from Fasque, Glad- 



274 NOTES. [1785] 

stone's Scotch home, stand two sculptured table-stones (like those 
to be seen in King's Chapel Burying-ground, Boston), one to James 
Burness, and the other to William Burness. The poet's father migrated 
to Ayrshire and rented seven acres of land in Doonside, which he cul- 
tivated with his own hands, and upon which he built a modest clay big- 
gin. He married Agnes Brown, "an Ayrshire lass, of humble birth, 
very sagacious, with bright eyes, of good manners, and easy address." 

The Burness stock was Norse mingled with Celtic, a race noted for 
courage and hardihood. A familiar expression in Scotland is, "I'll do 
my best, and men o' Mearns can do no more." The Browns were 
Lowlanders, with Saxon influence. From the union of these four 
races came the genius of Burns, whose noblest monument is The 
Cotter's Saturday Algkt. 

" Some envious power," says John Stuart Blackie, " assigned to 
Scotsmen a rugged plot of earth on the chilly edge of the world. But 
strong hearts, subtlety of thought, unbending wills, untiring hands, 
and a spark of the fire divine which Prometheus brought from heaven 
to kindle wise invention, — these are the glorious fairies' gifts that the 
blessed ones, the givers of all good things, have bestowed on Cale- 
donia." 

In 17S7, when the poet was making a tour of the Highlands, he 
had for a guide a lad who had read this poem to some purpose; for he 
said, *'I like best The Cotter'' s Saturday Night, although it made me 
greet [weep] when my father had me to read it to my mother." On 
hearing this. Burns replied, " Well, my callant, I don't wonder at you 
greeting at reading the poem; it made me greet more than once when 
I was writing it at my father's fireside." 

It should be mentioned here that it was this poem that gained for 
Burns one of his most helpful friends, Mrs. Dunlop. After it had been 
published, 17S6, the edition which contained it came into Mrs. Dun- 
lop's hands through a friend. This poem so affected her that she 
despatched a messenger to Mossgiel, a distances of fifteen miles, with 
a letter to Burns, asking him to send her a dozen copies, and also 
inviting him to her house as soon as it was convenient for him to come. 
This friendship lasted, and richly blessed the poet, throughout his life. 
Almost the last thing he did before his death was to write her. Mrs. 



[1785] NOTES. 2/5 

Dvinlop showed this poem to her housekeeper, who wondered that her 
mistress cared to entertain one so unknown as was Burns ; and the old 
lady returned it, saying, " Gentlemen and ladies may think muckle of 
this; but for me, it's naething but what I saw i' my faither's hoose 
every day, an' I dinna see hoo hae could hae tell't it ony ither way." 

" He threw over the poor," says Stopford Brooke, " the light of God. 
Every one knows the scene in The Cotter'' s Saturday AHght ; every 
one has felt how solemn and patriarchal it is." 

" A sketch of family life more pure, more true, or more touching, 
never was made. Hard must that man's heart have been, and opaque 
his intellect, who, after reading The Cotter's Saturday NigJit., could 
have looked with disdainful eyes upon any cottage. Scotland was 
the first object of the revelation — but after Scotland, mankind." — 
Mrs. Oliphant. 

The humble thatched cottage in which Burns was born, and in 
which we naturally lay the scene of this poem, still stands, and is the 
centre of interest to tourists. The birth-room contains interesting relics 
of the poet. Wilkie, in his famous painting, has reflected the spirit 
of the scenes in this poem. 

The visitor to Ayrshire will not fail to see many such genuinely 
human and nobly simple home-scenes. To break bread in one of 
these modest homes ; to see the standard of virtue and excellence 
among the sons of toil; to hear the Bible read, and listen to the sing- 
ing of the songs of Burns; to join in the rural festivities, — is to get 
close to the heart of things in which our poet was delighted to live and 
work. It is the most suggestive commentary upon his work which 
can be imagined, while at the same time it reveals to one the sources 
of the richness and sweetness, the depth and strength, of Scottish 
character. 

xvi. 3. Pope's Windsor Forest. — R. B. 

From Fergusson's Farmer's Ingle we take the following character- 
istic verses. Speaking of the bairnies he says: — 

" In rangles round, before the ingle's lowe, 

Frae gudame's mouth auld-warld tales they hear, 

O' warlocks loupin' round the wirrikow ; 

O' ghaists that win' in glen and kirkyard drear, 

Whilk touzles a' their tap, and gars them shake wi' fear." 



2^6 NOTES. [1785] 

" At the Centenary Celebration to be held in Glasgow July 21 of 
this year (1896), The Cotter'' s Saturday Night is to be recited in the 
twelve languages into which it has been translated." — Glasgow 
Herald. 

DEATH AND DR. HORNBOOK. 

{Edinburgh Eds., 1787- 1794.) 

"The hero of this poem," says Burns, " is John Wilson, school- 
master in Tarbolton. This gentleman, Dr. Hornbook, is professedly 
a brother of the sovereign order of the ferule, but by intuition and 
inspiration he is at once apothecary, surgeon, and physician." He 
had added to his work of schoolmaster that of apothecary, and adver- 
tised that he would prescribe for the poor sick, gratis. At a Ma- 
sonic meeting, in the fall of 1785, he made a speech, the vocabulary 
of which was largely from the Latin medical books. It displeased 
Burns so much that he shouted, " Have done. Dr. Hornbook ! " On 
his way home from the meeting. Burns met a man lying by the roadside, 
and the idea of Death suggested itself; seating himself on the parapet 
of the bridge near Willie's Mill, he composed this poem, then fell 
asleep, and when he woke the sun was rising. " These circum- 
stances," says Gilbert, " he related to me when he repeated the verses 
to me the next afternoon, as I was holding the plough, and he was let- 
ting the water off the field beside me." Thus this poem, like 7\i?n 
O^ Shanter, was struck off at a single heat. It is said that the publica- 
tion of this poem in the second edition of the poet's works raised such 
a laugh at the Doctor that he removed to Glasgow. 

iv. 2. Cumnock hills : Southeast of Tarbolton. 

v. 2. IVillie's mill : On the road to Mossgiel, occupied by Wil- 
liam Muir, a friend of Burns. He was one of the subscribers to the 
second edition of the poet's works. The place is easily identified at 
the present time. 

viii. 2. Saivin : "The time of the poem was seed-time, 1785." 
— R. B. 

xi. 5. " This while: An epidemical fever was then raging." 
— R. B. 



[1785] NOTES. 277 

xiv. 3. Biichan : " Buchan's domestic medicine." — R. B. 

xxi. I. Johnny Ged : " The grave-digger." — R. B. 

The Masonic lodge to which Burns and Dr. Hornbook belonged 
possesses many letters from the poet. Surely the man who drove 
such a pointed quill was to be feared by all the quacks of life or art. 

Wordsworth, the most temperate of bards, admired this poem, and 
said of it, "When Burns wrote his Death and Doctor Hornbook^ he 
had rarely been intoxicated, or perhaps much exhilarated by liquor; 
yet how happily does he lead his reader into the track of sensation ! 
and with what lively humor does he describe the disorder of his 
senses and the confusion of his understanding, put to the test by his 
deliberate attempt to count the horns of the moon : — 

' But whether she had three or four, 
I cou'd na tell.'" 

Douglas says, " Many a time, in his latter days. Hornbook has been 
heard, over a bowl of punch, to bless the lucky day when the dominie 
of Tarbolton provoked the castigation of Robert Burns." 

*' Of his humor, which is merely his love laughing and playing an- 
tics in very extravagance of joy, what can be said, except that it is the 
freshest, most original, most delightful, in the world." — Alexander 
Smith. 

"There are few, if any, satires in the English language more poeti- 
cal in character. Humor and satire mingle with vigorous narrative. 
The keynote is struck in the opening scene where the poet, ' canty ' 
with the 'Clachan yill,' sets his staff to keep him steady, and vainly 
attempts to count the horns of the moon." — H. Walker. 

A WINTER NIGHT. 

{Edinburgh Ed., 1787.) 

For exquisite rightness there is no poem of Burns's which can 
surpass this. It is not cold, — an artist's etching, — but alive with the 
warmth of a genuine human being. It is "dug out of the quarry of 
genuine humanity," says Wordsworth. 

Speaking of the tender sympathy which lights up the poem, Carlyle 



278 NOTES. [1785] 

says, "This is worth a whole volume of homilies on mercy; for it is 
the voice of Mercy itself. Burns lives in sympathy; his soul rushes 
forth into all the realms of being; nothing that has existence can have 
indifference to him." 

"The love that God had for the universe," says Stopford Brooke, 
" was reflected in the breast of Burns, and so wrought that when he 
was most full of it, he drew nearest to God. . . . The practical 
result of much of his poetry in his age was to do similar work to that 
of Christ." 

"Who could have supposed," says Mrs. Oliphant, "that of all 
places in the world a fellow-feeling so exquisite, so delicate, so ten- 
der, was waking under the roof of a clay cottage, and thinking, like 
heaven itself, of the humblest things, — the sparrows that do not fall 
to the ground without our Father? " 

Cf. Thomson, Winter. 

" Ah, little think the gay, licentious, proud, 
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround ; 
They who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, 
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste; 
Ah, little think they, while they dance along, 
How many feel, this very moment, death, 
And see the sad variety of pain." 

vii. Coleridge applied the moral of these concluding verses to the 
Ancient Mariner. Cf. As You Like If, Act ii. Scene vii.. Songs i. ii. 

The earliest mention of this poem is that in one of Burns's letters to 
Mr. John Ballantyne of Ayr, dated Mossgiel, November, 1786. The 
exact date of composition cannot be fixed. 

Cf. King Lear, Act iii. Scene 2. 

THERE WAS A LAD. 

{Crotnek, 1808.) 

In this nimble poem we have a scene in the north countrie at the 
birth of a man child. The gossips read his fate, and thus satisfy the 
curiosity of the fond parents. In an old copy of the song in Burns's 
handwriting, the first stanza and chorus are as follows: — 



[1786] NOTES. 279 

" There was a Birkie born in Kyle, 
But what na day or what na style, 
I doubt it's hardly worth the while 
To be so nice with Davie. 

Leeze me on thy curly pow, 

Bonnie Davie, daintie Davie ; 
Leeze me on thy curly pow, 

Thous'e ay my daintie Davie." 

By the insertion of Robin we are sure the poet meant this as a fore- 
cast of his fame. 

i. I. Kyle: central district of Ayrshire. 

1786. 

The year 17S6 is an eventful one for Burns in many ways, but chiefly 
because of the depth of despair into which he was driven by the un- 
fortunate incident with the Armours, and because of the delight which 
came to him by the publication of his poems. Burns lived a life of 
sharp contrasts ; he was either on the heights or in the depths ; his 
was never a valley life of calmness and happy serenity. Hamlet-like, 
he was never happy in that he was not over happy. He was the very 
button on Fortune's cap, or else he was the soles of her shoe ; he never 
lived in the middle of her favors. 

THE AULD FARMER'S NEW-YEAR MORNING SALUTATION 

TO HIS AULD MARE, MAGGIE. 

{Kiltnarnock Ed., 1786.) 

"In this homely but most kindly humorous poem," says Professor 
Shairp, " you have the whole toiling life of a ploughman and his horse, 
done off in two or three touches; and the elements of what may seem 
a commonplace, but was to Burns a most vivid, experience, are made 
to live forever. For a piece of good graphic Scotch, see how he de- 
scribes the sturdy old mare in the plough setting her face to the furzy 
braes." 

In respect of clearness and minute fidelity, the farmer's commen- 
dation of his " Auld Mare," in plough or in cart, may vie with Homer's 
smithy of the Cyclops, or yoking of Priam's chariot." — Carlyle. 



28o iVOTES. [1786] 

"The Address is an autobiography. The master remembers him- 
self along with his mare when she was ' dappl't, sleek and glaizie, a 
bonnie gray,' and he the pride of a' the parishen. The recital of it has 
brought tears of pleasure to the eyes and humanized the heart of a 
Gilmerton carter." — Christopher North. 

James Hogg, in chapter ii. of his Memoir of Burns, has some ad- 
mirable remarks upon the peasantry of Scotland and their relation to 
the poetry of Burns. " When we consider the genius of Burns," says 
he, " we see it manifestly moulded and colored by his agricultural life. 
It was thus that nothing seemed worthy to engross his attention but the 
feelings and the passions of the heart of man." Again, alluding to 
the fact that some have thought Burns' s poems irreligious and immoral, 
he says, "Now, indeed, if this be the case, it is most unaccountable 
that such compositions should have become universally popular among 
a grave, thoughtful, affectionate, and pious peasantry, and that the 
memory of Burns, faulty and frail as his human character was, should 
be cherished by them with an enthusiastic fondness and admiration, as 
if they were all bound to him by ties strong as those of blood itself. It 
would be a gross and irrational libel on the national character of our 
people to charge Robert Burns with being an immoral and irreligious 
poet." 

A BARD'S EPITAPH. 

{Kilmarnock, 1 7S6.) 

This poem is one of the few in which the poet anticipated the possi- 
bilities of the future. It is the musing of one who was neither ignorant 
nor careless of his faults and follies. He seemed to discern the de- 
light with which those who — 

" Sitting on a Prophet's seat, 
As lords of the Human soul, 
Would scan him from head to. feet, 
Were it but for a wart or a mole." 

The prayer he here uttered for the sympathy he himself had given 
to others was very soon answered in full by one poet whom he had 
taught — 

" How verse may build a princely throne 
On humble truth," 



[1786] NOTES. 281 

In 1803, when standing by the grave of Burns, Wordsworth 

wrote : — 

" Leaving such unquiet theme 

Where gentlest judgments may misdeem, 

Think rather on those moments bright 
When to the consciousness of right 

His cause was true, 
When wisdom prospered in his sight, 

And virtue grew." 

In 1 8 16 Wordsworth raised his voice against the spirit of Burns's 
early biographer. He says, " Plague, then, upon your remorseless 
hunters after matter of fact. Granting that all which has been raked 
up to the prejudice of Burns were literally true, how poor would have 
been the compensation for the deductions made, by this extrinsic 
knowledge, from the intrinsic efficacy of his poetry, to please and to 
instruct! Of poets especially it is true, that, if their works be good, 
they contain within themselves all that is necessary to their being com- 
prehended and relished. It is probable that Burns would have proved 
a still greater poet, if, by strength of reason, he could have controlled 
the propensities which his sensibility engendered, but he would have 
been a poet of a different class; and certain it is, had that desirable 
restraint been early established, many peculiar beauties which enrich 
his verses could never have existed, and many accessory influences, 
which contribute greatly to their effects, would have been wanting." 

Our language does not afford a more temperate, gracious, and wise 
bit of criticism on the genius and character of Burns. 

"We know his worst sins," says Christopher North, " but we can- 
not know his sorrows. The war between the spirit and the flesh often 
raged in his nature, as in that of the best of beings who are made; and 
no Christian, without humblest self-abasement, will ever read A Bard''s 
Epitaph.^'' Cf. Wordsworth's Poefs Epitaph, Tennyson's A Poefs 
Mind, The Poet. 

" Burns does not deceive himself," says Stopford Brooke; " for he 
has one of the noblest qualities a man can possess, — entire sincerky 
with himself. It never occurred to him to be untrue." 

" Here is a sincere and solemn avowal; a public declaration frorn 



282 NOTES. [1786] 

his own will; a confession at once devout, poetical, human; a history 
in the shape of a prophecy." — Wordsworth. 

" After a hundred years, the well-known lines of . / BanPs Epitaph 
present the best and justest view of the significance of Burns's life." 
— H. Walker. 

Cf. At the Tomb of Burns. William W^atson. 

THE TWA DOGS. 

{Kilmarnock Ed., 17S6.) 

The caustic wit of this poem is directed against the laird who so 
oppressed the Burns family when they were at INIount Oliphant. See 
note to The Bigs O^ Barley. 

" Robert had a dog," says Gilbert, "which he called Luath, that 
was a great favorite. The dog had been killed by the wanton cruelty 
of some person the night before my father's death. Robert said that 
he would like to confer such immortality as he could bestow on his old 
friend. Caesar was merely a creation of the poet's imagination." 

"The old controversy, which is ever new, between rich and poor 
has never been set forth with more humor and power." — Shairp. 

"He preached a crusade against the selfishness of the rich, but he 
did not wish the poor to become as the rich. Keep to your own life, 
he said to them; learn to live it; to live truly and honestly in it; to 
recognize in it the dignity of man." — Stopford Brooke. 

Charles Kingsley says, " Burns sees around him and above him, as 
well as below him, an average of men and things dishonest, sensual, 
ungodly, shallow, ridiculous by reason of their own lusts and passions, 
and he will not apply to the shams of dignity and worth the words 
which were meant for their realities. After all, he does but say what 
every one round him was feeling and thinking — but he said it; and 
hypocritical respectability shrank shrieking from the mirror of her own 
inner heart." 

1. 2. Kifig Coil : District of King's Kyle in Ayrshire. 

1. 27. Highland sang: " Cuchullin's dog, in Ossian's Fingal.''^ — 
R..B. 

"The dogs of Burns are downright dogs, and not, like the horses 
of Swift, and Hind and Panther of Dryden, men in the shape of 
brutes." — Dr. Currie. 



[1786] NOTES. 283 

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY. 
{Kilmarnock Ed., 1786.) 

Gilbert says of this poem, as of that To a Mouse, " I could easily 
find the spot where the incident occurred," 

The moral of the two poems is the same, and comes from the sad- 
ness in which the poet was then plunged. The Armours, who were 
enraged at his secret marriage with Jean, were making his life miser- 
able, and he was planning to go to the West Indies, when his friend, 
Gavin Hamilton, intimated that he might easily raise the money for 
the trip by publishing the poems he had lying in his table-drawer. 
The subscription-list was started and quickly filled; and the poems were 
given to the printer, accompanied with a characteristic preface which 
is reprinted in this volume, p. v. 

Mr. Greenshields of Kerse, Lesmahagow, has a manuscript copy 
of the subscription paper for the first edition of Burns's poems. 

It runs as follows: " April 14, 1786. Proposals for Publishing by 
Subscription Scottish Poems by Robert Burns. 

" The work to be elegantly printed in one volume octavo, price, 
stitched, three shillings. As the author has not the most distant 
mercenary view in publishing, as soon as so many subscribers appear 
as will defray the necessary expense, the work will be sent to press." 
Then follow names of sixteen subscribers, who were the means of 
giving to the world that precious volume. The edition comprised 
six hundred copies, and it was exhausted in two months. 

A fac-simile of this edition was published in 1886 by Wilson, at 
Kilmarnock. 

Mr. Andrew Lang asks, " Was it not as unhappy a thing, sir, for 
you, as it was fortunate for Letters and for Scotland, that you were 
born at the meeting of two ages and of two worlds, — precisely 
in the moment when bookish literature was beginning to reach the 
people, and when society was first learning to admit the low-born to 
her minor mysteries?" One may be curious to know what Burns's 
reply to this would have been. I cannot help thinking that he would 
have said, " It was not so unhappy a thing, sir, as you imply. Al- 
though I had my share of trials, I had, too, my share of pleasures; 



284 NOTES. [1786] 

and not the least among these pleasures was the love and esteem which 
my printed poems brought me." 

Mossgiel farm is situated on a ridge between the valleys of Ayr and 
Cessnock, into both of which it looks. The blue sea and the peaks of 
Arran are in the distance. Across the lovely Ballochmyle are the high- 
lands of Muirkirk, famous in the days of the Covenanters. In another 

direction — 

" The rising sun o'er Galston Muirs 
Wi' glorious light is glentin." 

The house has been much altered since Burns's day ; but nature 

remains the same — and yet not the same, for there is no eye to see 

what Burns saw. 

" From worlds not quickened by the sun 
A portion of the gift was won ; 
An intermingling of Heaven's pomp was spread 
On ground which Scottish shepherds tread ! " 

As we stand on the cold and rugged soil of the Mossgiel farm, we 
feel sure that to wrest from it a respectable revenue would require 
the " unceasing moil of a galley-slave." The scene is pathetic, but 
it is lighted by gleams of such manly Christian sympathy as are seen 
in this poem. The field of the " wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower " 
is renowned in story. Wordsworth was one of the first to sing of 
it and its surroundings: — 

" * There,' said the stripling, pointing with much pride, 
Towards a low roof, with green trees half-concealed, 
* Is Mossgiel farm ; and that's the very field 
Where Bums plough'd up the Daisy.' Far and wide 
A plain below stretched seaward, while, descried 
Above sea-clouds, the peaks of Arran rose ; 
And by that simple notice, the repose 
Of earth, sky, sea, and air, was vivified. 
Beneath the random field of clod or stone, 
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower 
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour 
Have passed away ; less happy than the one 
That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to 
Prove the tender charm of poetry and love." 

In the early MS. the title of this poem is The Gowan, 



[i786] NOTES. 285 

" I see amid the fields of Ayr 

A Ploughman, who, in foul or fair. 

Sings at his task 

So clear we know not if it is 

The lavrock's song we hear, or his ; 

Nor care to ask." 

Longfellow. 

TO A LOUSE. 
{Kilmarnock Ed., 1786.) 

"A Mauchline incident of a Mauchline lady is related in this 
poem, which to many of the softer friends of the bard was anything 
but welcome. It appeared in the Kilmarnock Edition of his poems, 
and remonstrance and persuasion were alike tried in vain to keep it 
out of the Edinburgh Edition." — Cunningham. 

Surely the poem was — 

" Wisdom to the wise, 
And play to them that list to play." 

The last stanza has given the poem immortality, 
vi. 5. Ltuiardi : Balloon-shaped. Vincent Lunardi made first 
balloon ascent in Britain in 17S5. 

EPISTLE TO A YOUNG FRIEND. 

{Kilmarnock Ed., 1786.) 

This epistle was addressed to Andrew Aiken, son of Robert Aiken, to 
whom Burns inscribed The Cotlei-'' s Saturday Night. He rose to a posi- 
tion of honor in the service of his country, being English consul at Riga. 

For an admirable handling of the subject of Burns's life and the 
lessons to be derived from it, see Theology in the English Poets, Lec- 
ture xvi. — Stopford Brooke. 

A DREAM. 

{Kilmarnock Ed., 1786.) 

If Burns had not feared grave and reverend church elders and doctors 
of divinity, it was not likely that he would quail whenever he felt called 
upon to deal with royalty. 



286 NOTES. [1786] 

" This poem is marked," says Blackie, "with the manly indepen- 
dence and gay freedom of a born enemy of all convention. The man 
who wrote this was stamped by nature for a truth-speaker and a public 
reprover, in a field where preacher and prophet would either be silent 
or deliver their message with a tone more than half-ashamed of its 
audacity." 

iv. 7-9. Loss of the American colonies. 

vii. 3. Get : Child. 9. Allusion to a proposal to reduce navy by 
sixty-four gunships. 

X. 8. Charlie : Right Hon. Charles James Fox. 

xi. 5. Him : Henry V. 

xi. 7. Sir JoJdi : Falstaff. 

xii. I. Osiiabiirg : Duke of York. 

xiii. I. Breeks : Prince William Henry, who espoused Miss Jordan, 
a player. 

THE LAMENT. 

{Kil}>iarnock Ed., 1786.) 

The Armours, who were of the Old Light party, were indignant at 
the secret marriage of their daughter to such a representative of the 
New Lights ; they refused to sanction it, and sent her to Paisley to 
avoid seeing him. The church, too, interested itself in the matter, 
and was no doubt glad to get its old offender in judgment. Burns was 
greatly agitated, and, in his desperation at this turn of things and at 
the failure of his farming operations, decided to go to the West Indies. 
It was under these circumstances that this poem was written. 

" The lark of Scotia's morning sky ! 

Whose voice may sing his praises? 
With Heaven's own sunHglit in his eye, 

He walked among the daisies, 
Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong 

He soared to fields of glory ; 

But left his land her sweetest song, 

And earth her saddest story." 

Holmes. 

" For wisdom and for warning the events of his life arc sufficiently 
familiar; he that runs may read; let him learn, and let him be better. 



[i786j NOTES. 28/ 

But I have no sympathy with that vampire-like spirit which disentombs 
the faults of the illustrious dead to feed the nauseous appetite of itself 
or others. While I do not regard genius as repealing the law of virtue, 
neither do I regard it as beyond the law of mercy." — H. GiLES. 



A PRAYER — O THOU DREAD POWER. 

(17S6.) 

Hardly had the first edition of his poems been issued before a second 
was proposed. Dr. Blacklock had written to Mr. Laurie, the minister 
of Loudoun, by whom he had been presented with a copy of the first 
edition, and had warmly praised the poems. Other appreciative crit- 
icisms followed ; and his Edinburgh friends desired that he should visit 
that city, and superintend the publication of a second edition. 

Burns was still depressed, and was undecided what his future 
would be, when Mr. Laurie invited him to his manse at Loudoun. He 
remained there several days in a smooth and safe harbor. When he 
came away he left this poem in the room where he had slept. Gilbert 
says, "Dr. Laurie had several daughters; one of them played; the 
father and mother led down the dance ; the rest of the sisters, the 
brothers, the poet, and the other guests mixed in it. It was a delight- 
ful family scene for our poet, then lately introduced to the world." 

" Grace and beauty were altogether absent from the public religion 
of Burns's day; but private religion, the piety of the heart, has rarely 
flourished in greater perfection than among the Scottish peasantry of a 
hundred years ago. If Burns proved the relentless satirist of system- 
atic Calvinism, he proved also the systematic poet and eulogist of fire- 
side piety." — H. Walker. 

FAREWELL TO THE BANKS OF AYR. 
{Edittburgh Ed., 17S7.) 

Of this poem Burns says, " My chest was on the road for Greenock", 
and I had composed the last song I should ever measure in Cale- 
donia — 

' The gloomy night is gath'ring fast,' 



288 NOTES. [1786] 

when a letter from Dr. Blacklock opened new prospects to my poetic 
ambition." This new prospect was a second edition of his poems, 
and by it he was deterred from the voyage to Jamaica. Cf. To Dr. 
Blacklock. 

Professor Walker adds, " I requested Burns to communicate some 
of his unpublished poems ; and he recited his farewell song to the 
banks of the Ayr, introducing it with a description of the circum- 
stances in which it was composed more striking than the poem itself. 
He had left Dr. Laurie's family after this visit to the reverend friend's 
house which he expected to be his last, and on his way had to cross 
a wide stretch of solitary moor. His mind was strongly affected by 
parting forever with a scene where he had tasted so much elegant 
and social pleasure, and depressed by the contrasted gloom of his 
prospects, the aspect of nature harmonized with his feelings ; it was 
a lowering and heavy evening in the end of autumn. The wind was 
up, and whistled through the rushes and long spear-grass which bent 
before it. The clouds were dreary across the sky, and cold, pelting 
showers at intervals added discomfort of body and cheerlessness of 
mind." We can hardly conceive the feelings of the poet at the thought 
of leaving forever his loved Ayr. 

" Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses 
For honest men and bonnie lasses," 

is divided by the River Ayr, which is spanned by the Twa Brigs : — 

" Auld Brig appear'd of ancient Pictisli race, 
The vera wrinkles Gothic in his face ; 
New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat, 
That he at Lon'on frae ane Adams got." 

The clay cottage in which Burns was born is about two miles from 
the village. It is a very humble house, with only two rooms, and is 
now kept as a memorial to the poet, and is filled with relics of his life 
and work, which are now worth many times their weight in gold. In 
the birth-room, opposite the inglenook, is a recess in the wall — the 
bed — hidden by curtains. " Here it was," says Hawthorne, "that 
Providence was pleased to deposit the germ of the richest human life 
which mankind then had within its circumference." 



[1786] NOTES. 289 

Kirk Alloway, the Burns Monument, and the Doon are all within 
easy walk of each other. The kirk is a roofless ruin, and the monu- 
ments are fast yielding to the tooth of time, yet they are safe in the 
domain of imagination. Bonnie Doon is the most poetic spot in all 
the Burns country ; here one does not wonder that imagination simple 
and sweet should wing itself. There is no lovelier spot — even in the 
charming Wordsworth land — than this quiet and picturesque Doon- 
side. The monument is a Corinthian-columned structure of much 
beauty. The most interesting relic here is the two volumes of the 
Bible which Burns gave to Highland Mary when they plighted troth on 
the banks of the Nith. From the cupola we get a fine view of the 
country round, — rivers, woods, and hills, — all of which he loved, 
and of which he sang. One seems to get very near the heart of Burns 
in these places, and the impressions become everlasting possessions. 

The Burns statue, erected in 1 891, is the latest addition to the 
beauties of Ayr. It is life size. The poet, dressed in simple costume, 
stands with arms crossed, the right hand closely clenched ; he looks 
toward his birthplace and the banks o' the Doon. 

WILL YE GO TO THE INDIES, MY MARY? 

{Cnrrie, 1800.) 

It seems that in his despair at the Armour troubles, Burns had 
sought relief in the friendship of one Mary Campbell, an Ayrshire girl, 
who was in the employ of Gavin Hamilton. They were at last plighted, 
and in a somewhat romantic manner. " We met in a sequestered spot 
on the banks of the Ayr the second Sunday in May, and spent the dny 
in taking farewell, before she should embark for the Highlands to 
arrange matters among her friends for our projected change of life." 

The lovers stood by the side of the stream, and laved their hands 
in the water, and holding a Bible between them, they promised to be 
faithful forever. 

Mary presented her lover with a small, plain Bible, while he re- 
sponded with two volumes. These two volumes are now in the Burns 
Monument at Alloway, near Ayr. They bear two inscriptions in the 
hand of the poet, — one from Lev. xix. 12, "Ye shall not swear by my 



290 NOTES. [17S6] 

name falsely, I am the Lord ; " and the other from Matt. v. 33, " Thou 
shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths." 

This episode in the life of Burns has been the subject of much 
heated discussion. We must remember that he had been rejected by 
the Armours as unworthy of their daughter. Burns at times blamed 
Jean, but it is doubtful if she ever intentionally wronged him. The 
most charitable treatment of this period in the poet's life is to be found 
in Blackie's Life of Biiriis. 

What lends all the more pathos to the period is the fact that when 
his first edition of poems gained for him name and position, the Armours 
were ready to lay aside their scruples, and to consent to the marriage 
which they had declared illegal and void. Cf. Note, p. 302. 1 788. 

After their betrothal Mary returned to the Highlands to prepare for 
the marriage ; and it was during her absence, and when Burns was 
ready for his departure to the Indies, that this poem and the two fol- 
lovv'ing were written. 

In sending this to Thomson in 1792, he says, "You must know 
that all my earlier love-songs were breathings of ardent passion ; and 
though it might have been easy in after times to have given them a pol- 
ish, yet that polish to me, whose they were, and who perhaps alone 
cared for them, would have defaced the legend of my heart which was 
so faithfully inscribed on them. Their uncouth simplicity was, as they 
say of wines, their race." 

The first line of this song was taken from an old Irish one beginning, 
♦' Will ye go to Dublin, my Molly? " 

Charles Kingsley, in speaking of the later Scottish song-writers, 
says, "They seldom really sing; their proses want the unconscious 
lilt and flash of their old models; they will hardly go (the true test 
of song) wdthout music — the true test, we say again, of a song. Who 
needs music, however fitting and beautiful, to the Flowers of the Forest, 
or to Atild Lang Syne ? " 

PRAYER FOR MARY. 

{Currie, 1800.) 

Familiarity with Burns's life up to this time puts one in an atmos- 
phere of mind and heart to appreciate such a soul-inspiring song as 



[1786J NOTES. 291 

this. Admit that he was suffering from his own indiscretions, yet this 
does not make the pangs less worthy of sympathy ; and we ought to 
rejoice that he found rest and comfort in the love of one so simple and 
so sweet as Mary Campbell. 



MY HIGHLAND LASSIE, O. 

kfison's Museufn, 178S.) 

This song is coined of the same unalloyed gold as the previous one ; 
and the heroine is Mary Campbell, " the warm-hearted, charming 
young creature " who had blessed Burns with her generous love. 
While she was in the Highlands, Burns sent her letters weekly. These 
somewhat disturbed her family, as gossips had informed them that 
Burns was a "scoffer at women;" but Mary was loyal, and laughed 
them to scorn. In one of these letters he sent this poem. The mother 
learned it by heart, and sang it to her grandchildren, being proud of the 
song that recorded the charms of her favorite daughter. 



LINES ON MEETING WITH LORD DAER. 

{Currie, 1800.) 

Among other Edinburgh men of letters who welcomed Burns's poe- 
try was Dugald Stewart, the celebrated Scotch metaphysician. He had 
a country home at Catrine on the Ayr, not far from Mossgiel. On one 
occasion he invited Burns to dine with him. It was then that he first 
met a real lord, — a young nobleman. Lord Daer, — who had been a 
pupil of Dugald Stewart and was then his guest. 

Dugald Stewart writes of the meeting, " Burns's manners were sim- 
ple, manly, and independent ; strongly expressive of conscious genius 
and worth, but without anything that indicated forwardness, arrogance, 
or vanity. Nothing was more remarkable than the fluency and precis- 
ion and originality of his language when he spoke in company." 

This meeting was Oct. 23, only a few days after the death of High- 
land Mary. Cf. Note to Mary in Heaven. 



292 NOTES. [1786] 

THE LASS O' BALLOCHMYLE. 

{^Ciirrie, iSoo.) 

The incident which gave rise to these lines is characteristic of our 
poet. He was walking one evening in the grounds of Ballochmyle 
House, not far from his farm at Mossgiel, when he met a beautiful 
lady, Miss Wilhelmina Alexander, the daughter of the owner of the 
estate. He afterwards wrote her and sent a copy of this poem, saying, 
"The enclosed song was the work of my return home, and perhaps it 
but poorly answers what might have been expected from such a scene." 

She took no notice of the letter, and Burns was somewhat disturbed. 
When Mrs. Dunlop tried to excuse her, he said, " Had a half-wittling 
lord written the poem, madam, would she have left it unanswered ? " 
Cunningham says that later the lady was proud of the letter, and 
pointed out to the admirers of Burns the spot where the poet met her, 
and where she had a rustic grotto made to commemorate the event. 
She died unmarried in 1843. Mr. Douglas says he has seen the letter 
and poem which she preserved in a glass case, and that they now hang 
in the *'spence," or back-parlor, of the Mossgiel house. 

Hawthorne says, " Henceforth for centuries that maiden has free 
admittance into the dreamland of beautiful women, and she and all 
her race are famous." 

THE BRAES O' BALLOCHMYLE. 

{Jolmsoft's ]\Inseu}n, 1790.) 

Tins song was a tribute to Maria Whiteford, daughter of Sir John 
Whiteford. It was written as a farewell to the family residence. It 
is said that the ancestor of the Whitefords suggested to Scott the char- 
acter of Sir Arthur War dour in The Antiqua7y. The seat of Professor 
Dugald Stewart was at Catrine in Ayrshire. This was a favorite resort 
of the poet. 



[1787] NOTES. 293 



SECOND PERIOD. 1787-1796. 



1787. 

ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH. 
{Edinburgh Ed., 17S7.) 

Burns set out for the metropolis on the 27th of November, and his 
journey was a sort of triumphal progress. The farmers in the vicinity 
of Covington, Lanarkshire, had agreed to signal his arrival with a white 
flag hung from a pitchfork on a corn-stack. As it was hoisted, they 
came running from all directions to see the author of the new volume 
of poems. They met him at a late dinner, when he increased their 
admiration for him by his ready wit and gentle humor. He reached 
Edinburgh on the 28th, and went to live with an old cronie at Baxter's 
Close, Lawnmarket. 

Mrs. Alice Cockburn, the gifted author of fve Seen the Sniilhig of 
Fortune Beguiling, then very aged, wrote of Burns's arrival, " The 
town is at present all agog with the Ploughman Poet, who receives 
adulation with native dignity." 

The story of his Edinburgh reception must be read in the biography. 
It is interesting and instructive, not only as a revelation of the nature 
and the art of the poet, but as a picture of the life of an aristocratic 
and cultured metropolis in the presence of simple and unaffected 
genius. 

This chapter in Burns's life introduces us to what may be called 
the second period of his literary work. It was indeed a critical time 
for a young man who had never been beyond the limits of Ayrshire; 
but the native strength and beauty of his simple and graceful manner 
was everywhere apparent, and enabled him to stand firm in the midst 
of the whirl of fashionable entertainment, and the convivialities of 
tavern life. The gentry did themselves credit by honoring such a 
character, and we must believe that they received a lesson in culture 



294 NOTES. [1787] 

from this rustic ploughman which was very wholesome indeed. We 
cannot think that their attitude towards Burns was entirely or mainly 
selfish, as has sometimes been represented; for the quick-witted youth 
would have readily detected any " crooking of the pregnant hinges of 
the knee," and would have launched his shafts at the pretenders. 
Instead of this, we find him praising the sincerity and heartiness of 
his welcome. The Caledonian Hunt, a society of nobility and gentry 
interested in the sports of manly men, subscribed for the second edi- 
tion of the poems, and Burns very courteously dedicated the edition 
to them. While he was being feted by wealth and culture, by repre- 
sentatives of the University, by the magnates of the Bench and the 
Bar, and by the Scottish nobility, he did not forget to pay honor at 
the shrines of simple artless poesy : he visited Canongate Churchyard, 
and knelt at the lowly grave of Fergusson; he found the shop of 
Allan Ramsay and reverently entered. 

Dugald Stewart says, "The attentions he received from all ranks 
and descriptions of persons would have turned any head but his 
own." Scott, then a lad of fifteen, met him at Professor Fergus- 
son's, and wrote, "As for Burns, I may truly say, '■Virgilitim vidi 
taut urn.'' I would have taken the poet, had I not known who he 
was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school, — 
the douce gicdenian, who held his own plough. There was a strong 
expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye 
alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It 
was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say literally glowed) 
when he spoke, with feeling and interest. I never saw such another 
eye in a human head." 

Mr. James T. Fields compares Burns with our own Hawthorne in 
personal appearance, and in the general impression made by his ease 
and grace of manner. He says, "I remember to have heard, in the 
literary circles of Great Britain, that since Burns no author had ap- 
peared there with a finer face than Hawthorne's. Old Mrs. Basil 
Montague told me, many years ago, that she sat next to Burns at 
dinner when he appeared in society in the first flush of his fame, after 
the Edinburgh Edition of his po'^ms had been puV)lished. She said 
among other things that, although the company consisted of some of 



[1787] NOTES. 295 

the best bred men in England, Burns seemed to her the most perfect 
gentleman among them. She noticed particularly his genuine grace 
and deferential manner toward women." 

This poem is a graceful tribute to the Modern Athens as it was in 
the winter of 1786 and 1787, — to her beauty and grandeur, her 
noble history and present prosperity, her strong men and beautiful 
women. 

vii. 5-8. Evhi /, etc. George, tenth Earl Mareschal, commanded 
cavalry at the battle of Sheriffmuir, and was followed by the Burness, 
his tenants. It is said that Burns's father fought at Culloden. 

Cf. Note to Cotter's Saturday Night. For another description of 
Edinburgh see Scott's Marmioji, Canto IV., xxx., xxxii. 

Alluding to the fact that had Burns been born a generation earlier 
he would have taken his place with the unnamed Immortals who left 
great songs to a little clan, Andrew Lang says: — 

" A quiet life of song, falletitis semita vita, was not to be yours. 
Fate otherwise decreed it. The touch of a lettered society, the strife 
with the Kirk, discontent with the State, poverty and pride, neglect 
and success, were needed to make your genius what it was, and to 
endow the world with Tatn C Shanter, llie Jolly Beggars, and I/oly 
Willie's Prayer.'' 

It is no wonder that the Scotsman loves his native land and its 
beautiful city of Edinburgh, as it reveals the life of the past and the 
life of the present. Here the race-consciousness is everywhere evi- 
dent in its originality, its passions, its magnificent variety and conti- 
nuity. Calton Hill, Castle Crag, and Arthur's Seat stand as sentinels 
of this grand old city, where the old and new blend in the witchery 
of romance and in the eloquence of noble sons and fair daughters. 
The greatest names in her literary history, Burns and Scott, are com- 
memorated in enduring memorials, the one on Calton Hill, the other 
in Princes Street under the shadow of the old castle. Mr. William 
Winter has said, " There is no literature in the world so musically, 
tenderly, and weirdly poetical as the Scottish literature; there is no 
place on earth where the imaginative instinct of the national mind has 
resisted, as it has resisted in Scotland, the encroachment of utility 
upon the domain of romance; and no city could surpass the physical 



296 ' NOTES. ^ [1787] 

fact of Edinburgh as a manifestation of broad ideas, unstinted opu- 
lence, and grim and rugged grandeur." To see this land is to love it 
for that which is even more beautiful than any poetry or romance pro- 
duced there. 

For the reader who has never visited Scotland I recommend William 
Winter's Gray Days and Gold, Mrs. Oliphant's Royal Edinburgh, and 
R. H. Stoddard's, Literary Land/narks of Edinburgh. 



EPIGRAM AT ROSLIN INN. 
KHogg and Rlotheywell, 1S35.) 

One evening when Burns had been entertained till a late hour, he 
was returning with his friend Nasmyth (the artist, and painter of his 
well-known portrait), and they wandered about the Pentland Hills 
until early morn, when they came to the village of Roslyn to breakfast. 
Mrs. David Wilson kept a little inn, and here they refreshed them- 
selves so delightfully that Burns left this poem written on a wooden 
platter. 

EPISTLE TO MRS. SCOTT. 

GUIDVVIFE OF WAUCHOl'E-HOUSE. 

{Eliza Scott''s Poems, iSoi.) 

The lady to whom these lines are addressed was Mrs. Scott, a painter 
and poet. She had written some stanzas to the bard in which she 
expressed her appreciation of his work, and concluded thus: — 

" O, gif I ken'd but whar ye baide, 
I'd send to you a marled plaid ; 
Twad baud your shoutbers warm and braw, 
An' douce at kirk or market-sbaw ; 
Far south as weel as north, my lad, 
A' honest Scotsman lo'e the ' maud : ' 
Right wae that we're sae far frae ither ; 
Yet proud I am to ca' ye brither. 

Your most obed. E. S." 



[1787] NOTES. 297 

The allusion in the third stanza is to the events related in his first 

poem — 

" O, once I lov'd a boiinie lass." 

While on his Border tour in the year following the date of this poem 
Burns visited Mrs. Scott. 



COME BOAT ME O'ER TO CHARLIE. 

Many are the songs in sympathy with the exiled Prince Charles. 
In the uprising of 1745 many of the women wore the cockade. In 
one Jacobite song entitled, The Women Are a'' Gane Wud, the chorus 
is: — 

"The women are a' gane wud 

that he'd bidden awa' ! 

He's turned their heads, the lad, 
And ruin will bring on us a'. 

1 aye was a peaceable man, 

My wife she did doucely behave; 
But now do a' that I can, 
She's just as wild as the lave." 

0''er the Water to Charlie belongs to the same period, and 
reveals how anxious the Highlanders were to have the Prince come 
back. In this song by Burns there is the same chorus, and but little 
that had not been in the old song, while one stanza of that, which he 
has not retained, is: — 

" I ance had sons, and now I have nane — 
I bred them toiling sairly; 
But I would bear them a' again 
And lose them a' for Charlie." 

Burns's ancestors of Kinkardineshire fought with the Earl Mareschal 
in 1 71 5, and his father was out with the Jacobites in 1745, so the poet 
came legitimately by his Jacobinism. 



298 NOTES. [1787] 



INSCRIPTION ON THE TOMBSTONE ERECTED BY BURNS 
TO THE MEMORY OF FERGUSSON. 

{Currie, iSoo.) 

In paying homage to his early masters, Burns found no memorial to 
Fergusson, whose Fanner'' s Ingle suggested to him the idea of The 
Cotter'' s Saturday Night ; and he at once wrote to the managers of the 
kirkyard of Canongate, asking permission to place a simple stone over 
the "revered ashes." The request was granted, and the stone was 
put in place. Under this heading, — 

"HERE LIES ROBERT FERGUSSON, POET, 
Bor7t Sept. 5, 1751 — Died October 16th, 1774," 

is to be seen the first stanza of this poem, and on the reverse side is — 

" By Special Grant cf the Managers to Robert Burns, Who erected 

THIS Stone in a Bqrial Place to remain Forever Sacred to 

the Memory of Robert Fergusson." 

Burns's original letter "To the Honorable Baillies of Canongate, 
Edinburgh," is given by Cunningham from the records of the managers, 
the last paragraph of which is as follows: — 

" I petition you, then, gentlemen, to permit me to lay a simple stone 
over his revered ashes, to remain an unalienable property to his death- 
less fame. I have the honor to be, gentlemen, your very humble 
servant, Robert Burns." 

When in time the ground settled, and the stone was found out of 
place, the ^sculapian Club of Edinburgh, soon after Burns's death, 
reset the stone with an additional inscription : — 

to the memory of 
ROBERT BURNS, THE AYRSHIRE BARD, 

WHO WAS BORN AT DOONSIDE, 

On the 2'ith 0/ January, 1759; 

AND DIED AT DUMFRIES, 

On the 2Tst of Juty, 1796. 

The last two stanzas of this poem were found in Burns's manuscript 
book. 

" Burns followed and furthered the work of Ramsay and Fergusson 



[1787J NOTES. 299 

in turning our literature from Continental themes and so-called classical 
treatment of them to Scottish scenery and music, and the modes of 
Scottish life." — J. Veitch. 

Alluding to the fact that Fergusson has not had justice done him, 
"as the lad who handed the poetic impulse to Burns," Robert Louis 
Stevenson says, "There is a kind of gaping admiration that would 
fain roll Shakespeare and Bacon into one to have a bigger thing to 
gape at, and a class of men who cannot edit one author without dis- 
paraging all others. Whoever puts Fergusson right with fame, cannot 
do better than dedicate his labors to the memory of Burns, who will 
be the best delighted of the dead." 



TO A LADY WHO WAS LOOKING UP THE 
TEXT DURING SERMON. 

{Croj)iek, 1808.) 

The new Edinburgh Edition of poems published by Creech appeared 
on 2ist of April, and with the assured success of the enterprise Burns 
began a series of tours to various sections of his native country. He 
had as companion for the first tour to the Border, Mr. Robert Ainslie, 
a young Edinburgh lawyer. They started in May, and on their first 
Sunday stopped at Duns, where lived the father of Mr. Ainslie, They 
attended church ; and when the sermon was in progress, and the clergy- 
man was arraigning the sinners, Burns noticed Miss Ainslie, the sister 
of his companion, hunting for the text, and at once wrote these lines 
on a slip of paper and handed them to her. 

THE BIRKS OF ABERFELDY. 

{Johnson'' s Hlnseujii, 1788.) 

In June Burns had returned to his old home, Mossgiel, where it is 
said his mother met him with the salutation, "O Robbie ! " Lockhart 
says, " Burns had left them comparatively unknown, his tenderest 
feelings torn and wounded by the behavior of the Armours, and so 
miserably poor that he had to skulk from the sheriff's officers to avoid 
arrest for a paltry debt. He returned, his poetical fame established, 



300 NOTES. [1787] 

the whole country ringing with his praise." After this visit he went to 
the West Highlands. " From Glasgow," says Mrs, Begg, " he sent 
presents to his mother and three sisters, namely, a quantity of mode 
silk, enough to make a bonnet and a cloak to each, and a gown besides 
to his mother and youngest sister." 

Aug. 25 he set out for the Highlands with William Nicol, master 
of the Edinburgh High School. When they came to Aberfeldy he 
wrote this song as he stood by the Falls. 

HUMBLE PETITION OF BRUAR WATER. 
{Edinburgh Ed., 1793-/ 

At Blair Athole, Burns met his friend Professor Walker, and was 
warmly welcomed by the duke and his family. On leaving, Burns 
wrote these lines of thanks in the form of a petition of the stream for 
shade-trees. The prayer was soon after answered, and beautiful trees 
adorned the banks. The "angel band" consisted of two sons and 
four daughters. 

THE LOVELY LASS O' INVERNESS. 

{Johtisoft's Museutn, 1796.) 

The tourists passed on to Inverness, and visited the scenes associated 
with Macbeth. " As the poet passed slowly over the fatal muir of 
Drumossie (Culloden), where the closing act of the Rebellion, 1745- 
1746, took place, the Lament of the Lass 0' Lnverness rose in his 
fancy." The original MS. is in the British Museum. 

" To what other man was it ever given so to transfigure the country 
of his birth and love? Every bud and flower, every hill and dale and 
river, whisper and repeat his name." — George William Curtis. 

" The fire which burns through his poems was not elaborated, 
spark by spark, from mechanical friction in the closet; it was in the 
open field, under the cope of heaven, that the poetical Franklin caught 
his lightnings from the cloud as it passed over him, and he commu- 
nicated them, too, by a touch with electrical swiftness and effect," — 
James Montgomery, 



[1787] NOTES. 301 



CASTLE GORDON. 

{Citrrie, iSoo.) 

From Inverness they went to Gordon Castle, where lived the 
duchess who had welcomed Burns to Edinburgh. Here they were 
hospitably entertained. Burns wrote this song on his return to Edin- 
burgh. 

Burns wrote in his yonrnal, "The duke makes me happier than 
ever great man did." 

A ROSE-BUD BY MY EARLY WALK. 

{JoJuisoii's ]\hisejivi, 1788.) 

The two travellers returned to Edinburgh in September. While 
in Edinburgh, Burns spent some time at the house of William Cruik- 
shanks of the Edinburgh High School. This poem is addressed to the 
daughter of his friend. She was fourteen years old at that time, and 
could play and sing his songs. 

These poems, and the incidents which occasioned them, remind one 
of Memorials of a Tour in Scotland hy Wordsworth. 

Mrs. Cockburn writes, "Do you know Burns.-* I am to get a very 
pretty little thing he calls The Rose-biui. Maybe I'll send it to you 
next week." 

BLYTHE WAS SHE. 
{Johtison^s Museum, 17SS.) 

The heroine of this poem was Euphemia Murray of Lintrose, 
otherwise known as the Flower of Strathmore. Burns met her on 
his visit to the Highlands, and was impressed with her beauty and 
cordial good nature. She was one of a small party to accompany the 
poet on the banks of the Ern to Glenturit, and she pointed out to him 
many of the beautiful surroundings. 

"I composed these verses," says Burns, "while I stayed at Auch- 
tertyre with Sir William Murray." Cf. Wordsworth's Yarrow Poevis^ 
and Borland's Yarrow^ its Poets and Poetry, 



;02 NOTES. [1788] 



BANKS OF DEVON. 

{JohnsoJi^s HIusenjH, 17SS.) 

This poem is in praise of a sister of Gavin Hamilton, who lived 
at Plarvieston on the Devon. 

Burns vv^rote to Miss Chalmers, a cousin of Charlotte the heroine of 
this poem, after visiting her home, "I am determined to pay Charlotte 
a poetic compliment if I could hit on some glorious old Scotch air. 
You will see a small attempt on a shred of paper inclosed ; but, 
though Dr. Blacklock commended it highly, I am not satisfied with it 
myself. You and Charlotte have given me permanent pleasure which 
the world cannot give nor take away." 

1788. 

Of the condition of things in Edinburgh in Burns's time Mr. 
Alexander Smith says, "The literary society of the time was exotic, 
like the French lily or the English rose. For a generation and more 
the Scottish philosophers, historians, and poets had brought their 
epigram from France as they brought their claret, and their humour 
from England as they brought their parliamentary intelligence." 

Would one think it possible that the presence of the ploughman 
poet in that metropolis, and the chance publication of his poems 
there, could change all this.? 

He had enjoyed and suffered in Edinburgh. The flattery and the 
feasting, the smiles and the speeches, were rated at their true worth. 
" I have formed many intimacies and friendships here," he says, " but 
I am afraid they are all of too tender a construction to bear carriage 
a hundred and fifty miles." The truth of these words was now to be 
tested. He began to think of home and of a settled purpose in life, 
now that Edinburgh had done her best, — a best which could not 
satisfy this proud-spirited peasant. He must have a life of love, even 
though it be in an humble cottage. 

In the spring of 1788 Burns left Edinburgh, and in March leased 
the farm at Ellisland, making "a poet's, not a farmer's, choice." 
The situation of this farm was beautiful for prospect. Located on the 
western bank of the Nith about six miles from Dumfries, it faced the 



[i788] NOTES. 303 

lovely stream and the historic holms and forests of Dalswinton on 
the east, while on the west were the hills of Dunscore and Corsincon, 
There was no farmhouse, and he was delayed taking possession until 
one should be built. 

In the meantime he married Jean, although the earlier marriage 
having been declared null and void he was under no legal obligation 
to return to her ; but Burns was not the base man he had been repre- 
sented to be, and the action, so greatly to his credit, brought peace of 
mind and gladness of heart. 

" My father put me frae his door, 

My friends they hae disovvn'd me a' ; 
But I hae ane will take my part — 
The bonnie lad that's far awa'." 

"The marriage," says PrAfessor Blackie, "was the most honorable 
and wise act in the life of a great genius, always remarkable for honor, 
not always for wisdom." 

The feelings of the poet at this time are expressed in letters to Mrs. 
Dunlop and Mrs. Chalmers. To the former he wrote, "I found a 
once much loved, and still much loved, female, literally and truly cast 
out to the mercy of the naked elements; but I enabled her to purchase 
a shelter." To the latter he says, " I have no cause to repent of my 
marriage. I have not got polite tittle-tattle, modish manners, and 
fashionable dress; I am not sickened and disquieted by the multiform 
curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the handsomest 
figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest 
heart in the country. A certain late publication of Scotch poems she 
has perused very devoutly, and all the ballads in the country, as she 
has the finest wood note wild I ever heard." 

It is not to be wondered at that his muse was busy now that he had 
leased the farm at Ellisland, and had determined upon housekeeping 
and farming. He had' also been appointed exciseman at fifty pounds 
a year. This seemed a singular combination of occupations, — farming, 
chasing smugglers and brewers, and writing poetry. But he was a 
farmer by choice, an exciseman by necessity, and a poet by nature. 

Cf. To Dr. Blacklock, 1789. 



304 NOTES. [1788] 

Burns took possession of the farm in June, and Jean remained at 
Mauchline until the house should be ready. He was homesick, and 
wrote to Mrs. Dunlop, "A solitary inmate of an old smoky spence, 
far from every object I love or by whom I am beloved, nor any ac- 
quaintance older than yesterday, except Jenny Geddes, the old mare I 
ride on." What a change from the society of Edinburgh gentry ! 



I LOVE MY JEAN. 

{Johnson's ISIuseum, 1790.) 

*' When he was not in Ayrshire in bodily presence," says Shairp, 
'* he was there in spirit. It was at such a time that, looking up to the 
hills that divide Nithsdale from Ayrshire, he breathed to his wife this 
most natural and beautiful of all his love lyrics." 

The tenderness, delicacy, humor, and passion of his songs render 
them unequalled in the lyrics of the world. It is no wonder that his 
countrymen sang by turns the Psalms of David and the songs of Burns, 
for in these as nowhere else are breathed the sentiments and the emo- 
tions of a common humanity. Both the Hebrew and the Scotch lyrics 
are the creation and the property of the people; " created by the peo- 
ple, and for the people, a joy to the maker and the user." 

I am not sure that justice has yet been done Burns in the matter of 
his loyalty to the sanctity of marriage, but I am sure justice will be 
done him ultimately. 

By this and the following, O, Were I oji Parnassus' Hill, written 
at the same period of separation, he placed his Jean in the position of 
honor in his own life, and made her known wherever the English lan- 
guage is spoken. 

Only the first two stanzas belong to the early poem; later four more 
were added, but only the last two of these are worthy of a place with 
the former. No poet's wife, unless it be Wordsworth's, has received 
equal praise by her husband. 

Much has been written upon the fact that at one time Burns uses 
English in his songs, and at another Scotch. Principal Shairp has 
said that he was unapproachable when he used his own Scotch dialect, 



[i788] NOTES. 305 

and that when he wrote in English he was seldom more than third 
rate. Arnold says that the English naturally turn to the poems in 
their own language because they read easily, but in them is not the 
real Burns. The real Burns is in the Scotch poems, in a world of 
Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and Scotch manners. At the same time 
he says, " This world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and Scotch man- 
ners is against a poet; it is often a harsh, a sordid, a repulsive world." 
It is undoubtedly true that Burns is at his best in his own Scottish ; 
and yet there is one poem. To Alary in Heaven^ which is unsurpassed 
in strength, grace, pathos, and power, though there is not a single 
Scotch word in it. It is yet true that pity, playfulness, tenderness, 
satire, and the natural lilt so characteristic of song, are expressed 
by Burns through the medium of the Scotch, and not a little of the 
charm of his work is due to this fact. 

O, WERE I ON PARNASSUS' HILL! 
{Johnsoft's Museum, 1790.) 

This is another compliment to Mrs. Burns. " The latter half of 
the second stanza," says Douglas, " has often been instanced as the 
very perfection of personal description in a love-song." 

i. 7. Corsijicon. A hill at the base of which the Nith enters Dum- 
friesshire. 

" We'll sing the nicht, Jean Armour's praise, 
She's worthy o' a sang, 
For it was Burns her ain guidman 
That raised her bin the thrang. 
While bleechin' claes on Mauchline braes 

By Rab she first was seen, 
When Cupid's darts pierced baith the hearts 
O' Burns and bonnie Jean. 

Jean was the jewel o' his heart, 

The apple o' his e'e. 
And little kent that country maid 

That she a queen wad be. 
For to us'lang she'll reign in sang, 

And gain oor high esteem ; 

She prov'd through life a faithfu' wife, 

Our poet's bonnie Jean." 

George Dobie. 



306 NOTES [1788] 

In 1792 Burns wrote to his friend Cunningham, and congratulated 
him upon his marriage: "Well, then, the scale of good wifeship I 
divide into ten parts: good-nature, four; good sense, two; wit, one; 
personal charms, viz., a sweet face, eloquent eyes, fine limbs, graceful 
carriage, all these, one; as for the other qualities belonging to cr 
attending on a wife, such as fortune, connections, education (I mean 
education extraordinary), family, blood, etc., divide the two remain- 
ing degrees among them as you please; only remember that all these 
minor properties must be expressed by fractions, for there is not any 
one of them entitled to the dignity of an integej'.'''' 

M'PHERSON'S FAREWELL. 

{Jo/utsoJi's Uluseum, 17S8.) 

" Another wild, stormful song," says Carlyle, " that dwells in our 
ear and mind with a strange tenacity, is M '' Pherson'' s Farewell, words 
that we never listen to without a strange, half -barbarous, half-poetic 
feeling." 

This poem was a result of Burns's third Highland tour. 

M'Pherson was a noted freebooter, "a shaggy Northland Cacus," 
executed at Banf, November, 1700. His body was buried on Gallow- 
hill, beneath the gallows tree. His sword and shield were deposited 
in the Earl of Fife's armory at Duffhouse. When M'Pherson came 
to the fatal tree he called for his violin, and played the tune to which 
he has bequeathed his name. He then said he would give the violin 
to any one who would play the tune over his body at the lyke-wake. 
As no one answered he broke it over the executioner's head, and 
flung himself from the ladder. 

M'Pherson when in jail under sentence composed the real lament. 
The chorus is : — 

" But dantinly and wantonly, 
And rantinly I'll gae, 
I'll play a tune, and dance it roun' 
Below the gallows tree." 

David Herd, Scotlish Soui^s v. I, p. 99, has jueservcd the old ballad. 
An incident in Tennyson's early life, when he was wont to visit the 



[1788] NOTES. 307 

Carlyles at Chelsea, is associated with this poem. " On one occa- 
sion when the poet stayed late, his hosts dismissed him by singing 
M"" Phe7' soil's Fare7oell, a tune which Carlyle called ' rough as hemp, 
but strong as a lion.' The rude tune and stirring words moved 
Tennyson so much that his ' face grew darker,' and his lips quivered." 
— Arthur Waugh. 

• AULD LANG SYNE. 

{Johnsoit's Museum, 1796.) 

Burns ascribed this song to an old minstrel. He sent it to Mrs. 
Dunlop, saying " Light be the turf on the breast of the heaven- 
inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment." The fragment 
was by Francis Sempill of Beltrees, who died in 16S3. 

A comparison of these songs will reveal the superiority of Burns's work. 

The first stanza of the old is : — 

" Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
And never thought upon, 
The flames of love extinguished, 
And freely past and gone ? " 

"The Sempills kept the lamp of Doric song lighted during the 
seventeenth century." — E. GossE. 

Professor Blackie says, "This poem of Burns's is as characteristi- 
cally Scottish as the heather on the brae, or the pine-tree in the glen; 
and the Scot who does not sing it heartily whenever he has a fine 
social opportunity is a poor creature, though he had all the sym- 
phonies of Beethoven, and all the Greek of the Athenian dramatists, 
reeling through his brain." 

Carlyle says, "His songs are already part of the mother-tongue, 
not of Scotland only, but of Britain, and of the millions that in all 
ends of the earth speak a British language. In hut and hall, as the 
heart unfolds itself in many-colored joy and woe of existence, the 
iiafue, the voice, of that joy and that woe is the name and voice which 
Burns has given them. 

" Many a glowing image of youthful love he has left us, the best of 
them as delicate and pure in their passion as ever lyrics were; and 



308 NOTES. [1788] 

here (in John Anderson') the circle of fervid verse is completed by 
the most perfect utterance of old and faithful affection." — Mrs. 
Oliphant. 

"In songs like Auld Lang Syne,^^ says Shairp, "Burns has ap- 
proached nearer to the Biblical severity, such as we find in the words 
of Naomi, or one of the old Hebrew patriarchs, than any other modern 
poet." 

One needs to hear this song as it is sung in Scotland at the breaking 
up of a social gathering, then the pulse will beat and the tears start. 

There are two versions to the poem, one in Johnson's Museum, 
and another in Thomson's collection. In the latter the second stanza 
as here given comes last, and the last line of the first stanza is: — 

" And days o' lang syne." 

UP IN THE MORNING EARLY. 
{Johnson^ s Museum, 17S8.) 

The chorus of this song is old, and only the two stanzas are by 
Burns. The air is English, and was a favorite with Mary Stuart. 

Burns at another time added four more verses, the last of which is : — 

" The plough stands frozen in the fur, 
And down the sun comes rarely ; 
Up in the morning's no for me, 
Up in the morning early." 

Any one who has ever lived in the country upon a farm can appre- 
ciate these sentiments. 

" From naked groves nae birdie sings ; 
The shepherd's pipe nae hillock rings ; 
The breeze nae od'rous flavor brings 

From Borean cave ; 
And droyning Nature droops her vi-ings 

Wi' visage grave. 
Mankind but scanty pleasures glean 
Frae snowy hill and barren plain 
When Winter, midst his nipping train 

Wi' frozen spear, 
Sends drift o'er a' his bleak domain 

And guides the weir." 

Daft Days. — Fergusson. 



[1789] NOTES. 309 



MY BONNIE MARY. 

{Johnson's i\It(se7:7H, 1790.) 

It is said that when Burns recited this poem to his brother Gilbert, 
as a relic of the old minstrelsy, Gilbert said, " It is beautiful, the 
most heroic of lyrics. O Robert ! if you would write oftener that 
way, your fame would be sure." The song was written as a com- 
pliment to a young officer about to go to a foreign shore. His boat 
lay at Berwick-law, and as he embarked a young lady stood upon the 
pier bidding him adieu. She is the bonnie Mary of the song. One 
stanza of the old song by Alexander Lesley, 1 636, reminds one of the 
first stanza by Burns: — 

" Ye'U bring me here a pint of wine, 
A server and a silver tassie ; 
That I may drink before I gang 
A health to my ain bonnie lassie." 

Some texts give as title to this poem, l^he Silver Tassie. 

ii. 4. 7 'hick : some texts give deep. 

This poem was sent to Mrs. Dunlop with Azild Lang Syne. 

1789. 

For about eight months Burns was busy building the farmhouse, 
tending his crops, and enjoying the freedom of a citizen of the world. 
At one time he might be seen on horseback chasing a smuggler, at 
another angling in the river or musing upon its banks, and again 
assisting in building a wall. " Did he ever put his hand to the 
wark?" was asked of one of his hired men. "Ay, that he did, mony 
a time," was the reply. " If he saw us like to be beat wi' a big stane, 
he would cry, ' Bide a wee,' and come rinning. We soon found out 
when he put to his hand; he beat a' I ever met for a dour lift." 

He completed the modest house of kitchen, bedroom, and garret, 
early in this year, and the business of making it a home began. 
Armour had given Jean some store of plenishing, and had used his 
skill as a mason to carve a punch-bowl of Inverary marble for Burns. 



3IO NOTES. [1789] 

Mrs. Dunlop gave a beautiful heifer; still another friend gave a 
plough. Their furniture was ordered in Mauchline, and their servants 
were hired in Ayrshire. 

" When all was ready," says Shairp, "Burns bade his servant, 
Betty Smith, take a bowl of salt, and place the family Bible on the top 
of it, and bearing these walk into the new house, and possess it. He 
himself, with his wife on his arm, followed." 

ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE LIMP BY ME. 

{Edinburgh Ed., i793.) 

Burns writes, "One morning lately, as I was out pretty early in 
the fields sowing some grass-seeds, I heard the burst of a shot from a 
neighboring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded hare came 
crippling by me. You will guess my indignation at the inhuman fel- 
low who could shoot a hare at this season, when all of them have 
young ones." 

Burns cursed the man, and at the same time threatened to throw 
him into the Nith. 

Cunningham says that he once met the man, Thomson, who was the 
unhappy subject of this poem. He alluded to Burns's threat ; and " I 
asked," says Cunningham, " ' Could he hae done it ? ' — ' Could he hae 
done it ! ' exclaimed he with wonder; ' deil a doubt but that he could 
hae done it; he was mair than a match for most men.' " 

The place where Burns met Thomson is as interesting to the tourist 
as that other where he turned up the daisy. It was a favorite musing- 
place of the poet, where he composed 7^am O' Shanter, and many of 
his loveliest lyrics. The verse-form of this poem, the inverted qua- 
train, was made popular by Tennyson. 

"No poet ever felt more deeply the sorrows of created things," 
says Stopford Brooke, " nor stronger anger at their slaughter for 
sport. The Wounded Hare will live in men's memories when hares 
^re no longer shot for sport." 

" This, which is one of the best of the very few good poems which 
Burns composed in classical English, is no mere sentimental effusion, 
but expresses what in him was a real part of his nature." — Shairp. 



Li 789] NOTES. 311 

Cf. Notes to Banks of Nith^ and Tarn O ' Shanter. 
Burns, on scaring some waterfowl in Loch-Turit, wrote: — 

" Conscious, blushing for our race, 
Soon, too soon, your fears I trace. 
Man, your proud, usurping foe, 
Would be lord of all below ; 
Plumes himself in freedom's pride, 
Tyrant stern to all beside. 



But man, to whom alone is giv'n 
A ray direct from pitying heav'n, 
Glories in his heart humane — 
And creatures for his pleasure slain." 

iii. This stanza was corrected by Dr. Gregory of Eilinburgh, to 
whom Burns referred the work for criticism. The original was: — 

" Seek, mangled innocent, some wonted form ; 
That wonted form, alas ! thy dying bed. 
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head, 
The cold earth with thy blood-stained bosom warm." 

The original had five stanzas, the following of which (and perhaps 
the best) was suppressed : — 

" Perhaps a mother's anguish adds its woe , 
The playful pair crowd fondly by thy side, 
Ah ! helpless nurslings, who will now provide 
That life a mother only can bestow.'" 



JOHN ANDERSON MY JO. 

{/ohfison'' s Museum, 1790.) 

This subject had inspired poets and painters before Burns gave it 
new life. The oldest form is: — 

" John Anderson my jo, John, 
Come in as ye gae by, 
And ye shall get a sheep's-head 
Weel baken in a pie; 



312 NOTES. [1789] 

Weel baken in a pie, John, 

And haggis in a pat, 
Jolm Anderson my jo, John, 

Come in an' ye'se get that." 

Another reminds us of Burns : — 

" John Anderson my jo, John, 

Frae year to year we've past, 
And soon that year maun come, John, 

Will bring us to our last : 
But let nae that affright us, John, 

Our hearts were ne'er our foe, 
While iu innocent delight we've lived, 

John Anderson my Jo." 

Although Burns took the idea of this song from the old version, it is 
said that the John of Burns 's poem was a native of Ayrshire and a 
carpenter by trade. He went to Invernesshire to live, and in declin- 
ing years was visited by Burns. He lies buried in Fort Augustus 
churchyard, embosomed in the hills that slope down to Lock Ness. 

"This poem," says Blackie, "bears the same relation to the love- 
songs of joy that the mellow sweetness of the fruit in autumn bears to 
the exuberant flush of vegetation in the spring." 



THE HAPPY TRIO. 
{Johftson' s Museum, 1790.) 

This poem originated from a meeting of Burns, William Nicol, and 
Allan Masterton, a musician of Dalswinton. Nicol had bought an 
estate at Laggan known as Willie's Mill, near to Burns's Ellisland 
home ; and here he spent his vacations. He made some repairs on 
the house, and when they were completed he celebrated by inviting 
his two cronies. " We had such a joyous meeting," says Burns, " that 
Mr. Masterton and I agreed, each in our own way, that we would 
celebrate the business." 

Burns celebrated this night of gayety in the richest and rarest of all 
bacchanalian songs; it is absolutely without a rival. The house where 
they met is still standing. 



[lySg] NOTES. 313 

So much silly prattle has been uttered about Burns being fond of 
drink as drink, that the brisk and bristling words of Professor Blackie 
are deserved, " Only a thin-blooded prig," says he, " or a sour phari- 
see, will take this poem for an exhibition of the poet's familiar habits." 

" Tell you guid bluid o' auld Boconiiock's 
I'll be his debt twa Mashlum bonnocks, 
And drink his health in auld Nanse Tinnook's, 
Nine times a week." 

"When Nanse heard these lines," says Cunningham, "she ex- 
claimed, ' Nine times a week ! Oh ! sirs, how these rhymers are gi'en 
to lying; a hen bird might drink a' at a draught he ever drank in my 
house. I never saw the color o' his coin.' " 

The N^imc est Bibendunt of Horace, — 

"Drink, comrades, drink; give way to mirth," 

is hardly equal to this song of our poet. 

'■'■Willie BreTv'd a Peck t>' Maut rides sovereign at the head of a 
troop of bacchanalian verses." — George Saintsbury. 

Cf. Horace: Jam veris Comites^zxi^ Tennyson: Will Waterproof ^ s 
Lyrical Monologue. 

iv. I. first: some texts give last^ as in Currie, 1S13. In 1820 
Gilbert Burns gave last. 

TO MARY IN HEAVEN. 

{Johnson'' s Museum, 1790.) 

It seems almost incredible that this poem, and 6>, Willie Bre7u\i a 
Peck t>' Ma tit, could have been written about the same time; but Burns 
was a man of moods, and it is but natural that these moods should be 
registered in his poetry. Carlyle says, " These poems are little rhymed 
fragments scattered here and there in the grand unrhymed romance of 
his earthly existence; and it is only when intercalated in this, at their 
proper places, that they attain their full measure of significance." They 
are the precious life-blood of a master spirit, and compel reverence. 

Highland Mary had died on her return to him from the Highlands 
in the fall of 1786. This sad event had cast him into profound gloom, 



314 NOTES. [1789] 

which is revealed more in his prose of that time than in his verse. 
From that gloom he was partially raised by the event of the first edi- 
tion of poems and the subsequent visit to Edinburgh. Now, at the 
anniversary of her death, the old feelings revived, and burst forth in the 
most plaintive and most pathetic of his love-lyrics. 

Mrs. Burns says, " Robert, though ill, had busied himself all day 
with the sheaves in the field ; and as he had got much of the crop in, he 
was in capital spirits. But when the gloaming came, he grew sad about 
something; he could not rest. He wandered first up the water-side, 
and then went to the barnyard; and I followed him, begging him to 
come in, as he was ill, and the air was cold and sharp. He always 
promised, but still remained where he was, striding up and down, and 
looking at the clear sky, and particularly at a star that shone like 
another moon." When he came in he composed these verses. 

Although the poems written in the Scottish dialect are on the whole 
more compact, more musical, yet what writer of English has ever sur- 
passed Burns's work in this poem? 

In 1S42 a simple monument was erected over the grave of Highland 
Mary in the old West Kirkyard, Greenock. It bears this inscrip- 
tion : — 

TO HIGHLAND MARY. 

O Mary! dear departed shade, 
Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 

The Burns Club of Greenock have the care of the plot ; and as a 
consequence are to be seen there the flowers and plants loved by the 
poet, — the rose, the honeysuckle, and the daisy. 

The poet Campbell writes : — 

" Who that has melted o'er his lay, 
To Mary's soul in Heaven above, 
But pictur'd sees, in fancy strong. 
The landscape and the live-long day, 
That sinil'd upon their mutual love? 
Who that has felt forgets the song?" 



Whittier asks ; 



' But who his human heart has laid 

To Nature's bosom nearer ? 
Who sweetened toil like him, or paid 
To love a tribute dearer ? " 



[1789] NOTES. 315 

John Stuart Blackie, in advocating the use of Scotch songs in the 
public meetings of Scotland, says, " If choice were to be made between 
classical education and Scottish song, I would say at once, burn 
Homer, burn Aristotle, fhng Thucydides into the sea, but let us by all 
means on our Scottish hills and by our Scottish streams have Highland 
Mary, Atild Lang Syne, and Scois IVha luie wi'' Wallace Bled.'''' 



MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS. 

{Joh>iso7i^s HTusemn, 1790.) 

The chorus of this song is old, the rest is Burns's composition. 

In this poem we see the Celtic element in Burns's nature asserting 
itself. He loved Ossian, and he had the Gaelic love of nature. Per- 
haps in no modern Scot has this characteristic revealed itself so promi- 
nently as in John Stuart Blackie. Although a Lowlander, he not only 
loved the Highlands, but became the champion of the Crofters against 
English usurpation. He built him a house on the west coast at Oban, 
amid the sea and the isles, the moors and the mountains. 

Here is a stanza of Duncan Ban's Ben Dorain, translated by Pro- 
fessor Blackie: — 

" And sweeter to my ear 
Is the concert of the deer 

In their roaring, 
Than when Erin from her lyre 
Warmest strains of Cehic fire 

May be pouring; 
And no organ sends a roll 
So delightsome to my soul, 
As the branchy-crested race 
When they quicken their proud pace, 
And bellow on the face 

Of Ben Dorain." 

For an excellent rendering of the spirit of the Highlands read 
Blackie 's Lays of the Highlands and Lslands. 

There is nothing more pathetic in Scottish history than the depopu- 
lating of the Highlands. Entire glens have given up their inhabitants 



3l6 NOTES. [1789] 

to make room for the English farmer. Professor Blackie says that he 
passed the length of one of these glens, and saw only heaps of ruined 
clachans from which the people had been driven, and at the bottom 
of the strath on the seacoast he found a city of refuge where the 
crofters had huddled. He sings: — . 

" Bonnie Strathnavar ! Sutherland's pride, 
Sweet is the breath of the birks on thy side ; 
But where is the blue smoke that curled from the glen 
When thy lone hills were dappled with dwellings of men ? " 

TO DR. BLACKLOCK. 
{Currie, 1800.) 

Dr. Blacklock, the Edinburgh Maecenas, was the first of the 
literary friends of the poet. It was at his suggestion that the second 
edition of the poems was issued. His love and esteem were always of 
the greatest assistance to Burns. His simple and sweet Christian 
nature made him kindly with his kind, and he viewed the frailties of 
his fellow-mortals with tenderness and sympathy. Poetry had been to 
him, in his perpetual blindness, as it was to Coleridge, its own " ex- 
ceeding great reward. It soothed his aftiictions, it multiplied and 
refined his enjoyments, it endeared solitude, it gave him the habit of 
wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that met and 
surrounded him." He is called in Scotland " the discoverer of Robert 
Burns." 

On one occasion Burns had sent him a letter by Robert Heron ; 
but it miscarried, and the good man wrote the following characteristic 
verses: — 

"Dear Burns, brother of my heart, 

Both for thy virtues and thy art ; 

If art it may be called in thee, 

Which Nature's beauty, large and free, 

With pleasure in thy breast diffuses. 

And warms thy soul with all the Muses. 

Whether to laugh with easy grace, 

Thy numbers move the sage's face, 

Or bid the softer passions rise, 
* And ruthless souls with grief surprise. 



[1789] NOTES. 317 

'Tis Nature's voice, distinctly felt 
Thro' thee her organ, thus to melt. 

Most anxiously we wish to know 

With thee of late how matters go; 

How keeps thy much lov'd Jean her health ? 

What promises thy farm of wealth ? 

Whether the Muse persists to smile, 

And all thy anxious cares beguile ? 

Whether bright fancy keeps alive ? 

And how thy darling infants thrive ? 

For me, with grief and sickness spent, 
Since I my journey homeward bent. 
Spirits depressed, no more I mourn. 
But vigor, life, and health return. 
No more to gloomy thoughts a prey, 
I sleep all night, and live all day ; 
By turns my book and friend enjoy. 
And thus my circling hours employ ; 
Happy, while yet these hours remain, 
If Burns could join the cheerful train 
With wonted zeal, sincere and fervent 
Salute once more his humble servant, 

Thomas Blacklock." 

ii. I. Heron : Author of a history of Scotland, and of a life of 
Burns. 

iii. 6. "He ventured the soul, and I risk'd the body" {^Jolly 
Beggars). 

In 1792, in writing to Mrs. Dunlop about his children, Burns said: 
" I hope, if I am spared with them, to show a set of boys that will do 
honor to my cares and name; but I am not equal to the task of 
rearing girls. Besides, I am too poor. A girl should always have 
a fortune." 

Cf, Wordsworth, To the Sons of Burns. 

ON THE LATE CAPTAIN GROSE'S PEREGRINATIONS. 

{Edinbiirgh Ed., 1793.) 
The hero of this humorous poem was a zealous Scotch antiquary, 
and a lover of wit and wine. Burns met him at Friars-Carse, where 



3l8 NOTES. [1790] 

antiquaries were wont to assemble. The two became interested in 
each other ; and the meeting was a happy one for them, and for all 
readers of Burns, as it gave us two of his most characteristic poems. 

The burly Scotch of this poem is in striking contrast to the smooth 
English of To A/ary in Heaven. Scotch was the language of the 
♦'ingle creek," the song and the sermon. 

i. 2. Maidenkirk : Kirkmaiden in Wigtonshire, in the south of Scot- 
land. 

TAM GLEN. 
(^Johftsoit's Museian, 1790.) 

Of the love-songs of Scotland, Professor Blackie says, " They are as 
rich and various as the flowers of the field, and poured out from all 
quarters as spontaneously and as sweetly as the song of the mavis in 
May. Delicate and daintily sly in its humor, Tai/i Glen is the work 
of a master hand." 

"This is the title of an old song and older Scottish air. Burns's 
song no sooner made its appearance than it became a favorite; it was 
sung in the field and at the fireside. Husbandman as he met husband- 
man slapped his thigh and said, — 

' The very grey breeks o' Tarn Glen ! ' " 

Cunningham. 



1790. 

TAM O' SHANTER. 

{Edmburgh Ed., 1793-) 

We have seen that despondency came to Burns with the return of 

autumn. This was due partly to his ill luck as a farmer, but more to 

increasing family cares. 

Although this year yields but little poetry, yet one such work as 
Tarn 0' Shanler makes it memorable. 

When Burns met Captain Grose at Friars-Carse he invited him 
to visit Alloway Kirk, and make a drawing of it for his sketches of 



[i79o] NOTES. 319 

the Antiquities of Scotland; and he replied, "Write you a poem on 
the scene, and I'll put in the verses with an engraving of the ruin." 

On the "fitting day and hour" Burns composed this marvellous 
piece of work. Mrs. Burns tells us that the poem was the work of 
one day. Burns had spent most of the day by the Nithside, and in 
the afternoon she joined him with the children. He was "crooning 
to himself," while she remained at a distance, lest she disturb him; 
soon attracted by his wild gesticulations, she found him with the tears 
rolling down his cheeks, reciting these lines: — 

•'Now Tarn, O Tarn! had thae been queans, 
A' plump and strapping in their teens." 

" I wish you had seen him," says she, " he was in such ecstasy. 

The following notes and comments I condense from the work of 
Allan Cunningham. The original Tam was one named Douglas Gra- 
hame, a Carrick farmer. Shanter is the name of a farm which Grahame 
owned. Burns, when p boy, had met the man often, and had viewed 
his drinking bouts with his brother-in-law. Tarn's wife discouraged 
these habits, and often when he returned at evening to his home she 
lectured him so severely that he would return to the alehouse for the 
night. 

1. 28. Kirkton Jean : Kirkton is the name of any place where the 
parish church is located. Jean Kennedy kept a public house at Kirk- 
oswald. 

1. 32. Alloway's kirk : Here are buried the members of the Burns 
family. See Wordsworth's poem, At the Gi-ave of Burns, 

1. 206. Brig : Auld Brig o' Doon. 

1. 218. Scarce a stuDip : It is said that once Grahame tied his mare 
at the door of a public house ; and while he was in the house with his 
ale, the boys plucked away the hairs of the mare's tail for fish-lines. 
Grahame attributed this to the work of witches. The witches in the 
kirk is also based upon an old story common at the times. The Scotch 
people are as proud of this poem as they are of The Cotter'' s Saturday 
Night. 

"The poet, trusting to primary instincts, luxuriates among the felici- 
ties of love and wine, and is enraptured while he describes the fairer 



320 NOTES. [1790] 

aspects of war; nor does he shrink from the company of the passion 
of love, though immoderate — from convivial pleasures, though intem- 
perate. Frequently and admirably has Burns given way to these im- 
pulses of nature, both with reference to himself, and in describing the 
condition of others. Who but some impenetrable dunce, or narrow- 
minded puritan in works of art, ever saw without delight the picture 
which he has drawn of the convivial exaltation of the rustic adventurer, 
Tam o' Shanter? " — Wordsworth. 

" Auld Alloway Kirk " stands not far from the poet's birthplace. 
It is now roofless; but the walls are strengthened and adorned with the 
abundant ivy — " fall to prevent, or beautify decay." 

Scott writes in his diary (1825) : "I seem to gain, in buffeting with 
the wind, a little of the high spirit with which in younger days I used 
to enjoy a Tam o' Shanter ride through darkness, wind, and rain, the 
boughs groaning and cracking over my head, the good horse free to 
the road and impatient for home, and feeling the weather as little as I 
did." 

Kirkoswald people to this day claim Tam, Kate, Cutty Sark, and 
Souter Johnny. 

Tam o' Shanter Inn is situated on High Street, Ayr, and has long 
been a very interesting memorial of the poet. In 1892 it was sold at 
auction because the Weaver's Incorporation which owned it became 
extinct, and it then reverted to the Crown. The Town Council asked 
the Crown to give it to that organization to be kept as a memorial ; 
but the request was refused, and the inn was put up at public roup. 
It was bought by Councilman Fraser, for ^^3,190, and has not been 
diverted from its memorial purposes. 



ELEGY ON CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON. 
{Edinburg Ed., 1793-) 

Burns lost many friends during this year, and this, added to his 
other trials, made him very despondent ; but yet he found time and 
inclination to write noble memorial verses, and to remodel songs for 
the Museum. '■'■The Elegy 011 Captain I/etuierson,^^ says Burns, "is a 



[lygi] NOTES. 321 

tribute to the memory of a man I loved much." The captain was 
a retired soldier of character and influence. He lies in Greyfriars 
churchyard, near the monument erected to Duncan Ban. 

Everywhere Burns treats nature as the companion and associate of 
man. In this poem his appeal to nature is in the spirit of the old 
Greeks, — in sympathy with the mood of the poet. See Shairp's 
Poetic Interpretation of Nature^ Btirns, p. 224, and Stopford Brooke's 
Theology in the English Poets (Burjis). "The poem is full of most 
truthful references to outward nature ; and the whole is fused with an 
extraordinary intensity of feeling, paralleled only in the Lycidas of 
Milton, and the Adonais of Shelley. — J. Veitch. 

THE BANKS OF NITH. 

{Johftsoii's Alitsewn, 1790.) 

In this song the poet breathes the sentiments of one who has left 
his native heath for the smoke and noise of London. Burns's sympa- 
thies are universal ; there is nothing in the realm of God's creative 
works which is not linked to him by these fellow-feelings. 

Cf. Ian Maclaren's Ei the Days of Anld Lang Syne for similar 
longing for Scotland by one who went to the city. 

Cf. Wordsworth's Reverie 0^ Poor Snsan. 

1791. 

LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

(Edinburgh Ed., 1793.) 

I AM not able to give the exact date of this poem ; but as Burns's 
letter acknowledging the receipt of the snuff-box from Lady Winifred 
Maxwell Constable is dated April 25, 1791, I conclude that this poem 
belongs to the early days of 179 1. In return for the present, Burns 
sent this poem. The Maxwells lost many of their estates in the cause 
of the Stuarts. Here Queen Mary fled after the fatal event of Lang- 
side. Ruins of the old baronial castle on the Nith are still to be 
seen. 



322 NOTES. [1791] 

"This is one of the greatest triumphs of simple art won through the 
natural power of contrast, often so mysteriously manifested between 
nature and our human lot, especially the joy of heaven and earth, and 
our despondency, or even awful sorrow." — J. Veitch. 



LAMENT FOR JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 

(^Edinburgh Ed., 1793.) 

The noble earl deserves a place beside the gracious Dr. Blacklock 
among the friends of Burns. The earl first met Burns in Edinburgh, 
and at once interested himself in his welfare. He introduced him to 
Creech, the Edinburgh publisher of note, and, as a result, through him 
was issued the second edition of the poems. In 1787 Burns had 
written some verses in honor of his patron ; but the earl, from motives 
of modesty, did not wish them published, and the poet did not pre- 
serve them. Burns at one time hoped to gain a pension, or post of 
remuneration, through the earl's influence. He wrote to Dr. Moore, 
" I had immense loss in the death of the Earl of Glencairn, the patron 
from whom all my fame and good fortune took its rise." It was such 
feeling that inspired this pathetic poem. 

Charles Kingsley says of the age in which Burns wrote, " Looking 
around him in such a time, with his keen power of insight, his keen 
sense of humor, what was there to worship? One feels painfully in 
his poems the want of great characters, and still more painfully that 
he has not drawn them simply because they were not there to draw. 
That he has a true eye for what is noble when he sees it, let his 
Lament for Glencairn testify." 

Burns named one of his sons James Glencairn Burns. He was edu- 
cated at Christ's Hospital by the earl, and afterwards became captain 
in the army in India. 

When Burns was ornamenting his farmhouse at Ellisland, he hung 
the portraits of Dr. Blacklock and the Earl of Glencairn over his 
parlor chimney-piece. Beneath the portrait of the earl he wrote: — 

"Whose is that noble, dauntless brow? 
And whose that eye of fire? 



[i79i] NOTES. 323 

And whose that generous, princely mien 

E'en rooted foes admire ? 
Stranger! to justly show that brow, 

And mark that eye of fire, 
Would take his hand, whose vernal tints 

His other works inspire." 

Burns wrote to the sister of the lord, " My clearest existence I owe 
to the noble house of Glencairn." Had this man lived, Burns would 
not have died in poverty and want. 

Cf. Tennyson, In the Garden at S7vai7iston. 

THE BANKS O' BOON. 

(^JoJuisoti' s J\Iuseian, 1792.) 

There were three poems on tlie Doon, of which this and the follow- 
ing are the best. 

VERSION PRINTED IN THE MUSICAL MUSEUM. 
{Cromek's Reliques, 180S.) 

In sending this poem to a friend, in March, 1 79 1, Burns wrote, 
" While here I sit sad and solitary, by the side of a fire in a little country 
inn, and drying my wet clothes, in pops a poor fellow of a sodger, and 
tells me he is going to Ayr. By heaven ! I say to myself, with a tide 
of good spirits which the magic of that sound, ' Auld Toon o' Ayr,' 
conjured up, I will send my last song to Mr. Ballantyne." This was 
the second version, and the one which is usually meant when The 
Banks d' Doon is mentioned. 

It is in such poems as this that we get the full significance of the 
Scotch dialect, — its grace and flexibility, its richness in vocal sounds, 
its warmth and color, its capacity for the finest breath of sentiment, 
and its atmosphere of homely, hearty melody. I believe that a vital 
acquaintance with these songs will do much to quicken in the young a 
love of simple, natural, wholesome music. 

Robert Louis Stevenson says, "When the English language was 
becoming more pedantic and inflexible, and English letters more 
colorless and slack, there was another dialect in a sister country, and 
a ^different school of poetry. The dialect was written colloquially, 



324 A'OTES. [1791] 

which kept it fresh and supple; and although not shaped for heroic 
flights, it was a direct and vivid medium for all that had to do with 
social life." 

It is this same dialect which gives to the works of Ian Maclaren 
their chief charm as prose idyls. 

Another version, the earliest, given by Douglas, is as follows: — 

"Sweet are the banks — the banks o' Doon, 

The spreading flowers are fair, 
And everything is blythe and glad, 

But I am free o' care. 
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird. 

That sings upon the bough ; 
Tliou minds me o' the happy days 

When my fause Luve was true : 
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird, 

That sings beside thy mate ; 
For sae I sat, and sae I sang, 

And wist na o' my fate. 

Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon 

To see the woodbine twine ; 
And ilka bird sang o' its Luve, 

And sae did I o' mine : 
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, 

Upon its thorny tree ; 
But my fause Luver staw the rose, 

And left the thorn wi' me : 
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, 

Upon a morn in June ; 
And sae I flourished on the morn. 

And sae was pu'd on noon." 

The two versions given here are the accepted versions, but they are 
made up of the three given by Douglas. 

Many are the rivers which have found immortality in song; but in 
this poem, the most perfect in any language, the Doon is most fit- 
tingly enshrined. To stand upon the old Tam O'Shanter bridge in 
sight of Burns's memorial ; to wander on the banks of this beautiful 
river in the quiet of the evening, as the scent of the wild-flowers is 
borne upon the breeze, and the murmur of the stream is the oijly 



[i79i] NOTES. 325 

sound to be heard, — puts one in tune with the sense and the soul of 
the poetry written here. There is no place in the district so attractive 
to the lover of Burns as this retired spot. 

" Some thirty years ago A. Tennyson went over Burns's ground at 
Dumfries. When he was one day by Doon side — ' I can't tell how it 
was, Fitz, but I fell into a passion of tears ' — and A. T. was not given 
to the melting mood at all " (Edward Fitzgerald to Fanny Kemble). 

ADDRESS TO THE SHADE OF THOMSON. 
{^Edinburgh Ed., 1793.) 

Burns was invited by the Earl of Buchan to come to the coronation 
of the bust of Thomson on Ednam Hill, at Dryburgh, on the 22d of 
September, 1791. The poet was reaping when the invitation came; 
he stopped work, walked along the Nith, and composed this poem, 
which he sent to the Earl of Buchan. 

The Earl composed the following for the coronation of the bust of 
Burns at the foot of a statue of Wallace which he had erected near 
Dryburgh in 1814 : — 

" Poet of Coila, here at Wallace's feet, 

Thy generous muse, thy manly soul, I greet, 
Thy soul, now severed from a servile crew, 
And blest, united to the chosen few ! 
Too late I found thee, to redeem thy days 
From bloated joys and ill-directed lays ; 
But now I come, even with thy setting sun. 
To see to thee some tardy justice done. 
Upon thy bust, as once on Thomson's, I 
Impose this chaplet, with a genial sigh; 
And may our brave, unconquer'd country's fire 
Still glow in song, and sparkle from her lyre." 

AFTON WATER. 

{Johiisofts Museum, 1792.) 

LOCKHART says, "This poem Burns sent to Mrs. Stewart of Stair, 
one of the first to admire his poetry." 

Afton is an Ayrshire stream which flows into the Nith. There has 



326 NOTES. [1791] 

been much controversy as to who is the heroine of the song ; but the 
best evidence points to Highland Mary, who was buried in the kirk- 
yard at Greenock. 

The following quotation accompanied the original: " I charge ye, 
O ye daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up my love — my dove, 
my undefiled ! The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the sing- 
ing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land " 
(R. B.). 

Cf. Yai-ro7v Visited by Wordsworth, for similar spirit. 



AE FOND KISS. 
{^Johnson s JlTuseiim, 1792.) 

The close of this year was one of the saddest in the life of our 
poet. It was now demonstrated that he had made a poet's, not a 
farmer''s choice. His crops did not yield him any adequate return for 
the money he had expended. He had used the proceeds remaining 
from the sale of the second edition of his poems. In August he decided 
to sell the crops, and give up the lease, and in November the farming 
business was wound up. 

"It is not without deep regret," says Shairp, "that even now we 
think of Burns's departure from this beautiful spot. If there was any 
position on earth in which he could have been happy and fulfilled his 
genius, it would have been on such a farm." 

He moved to a house in what is now known as Burns Street, near the 
lower end of Bank Vennel in Dumfries. Here the society was not 
conducive to regular habits, either of business or art. He was thrown 
in the company of an idle set, much to the injury of his reputation 
among the steady-going peasantry. 

"When in Edinburgh, Burns met Mrs. M'Lehose, who was a woman 
of taste and refinement. She had great appreciation of his poetry, and 
a lively correspondence resulted; but it lagged somewhat after Burns's 
marriage. When he heard that slie was about to go to the West Indies, 
he hastened to her m Edinburgh. This and the poem, A/y A'ajuiie's 
Acua. were addressed to her. Doubtless one of them refers to this 



[1792] NOTES. 327 

parting. Scott said, " These poems contain the essence of a thousand 
love tales." "The last half of the second stanza (first poem) sug- 
gested to Byron the motto for the Bride of Abydos."" — Cunningham. 

1792. 

Soon after Burns settled at Dumfries, it happened that Mr. George 
Thomson, who was making a collection of Scottish songs, desired him 
to contribute, and to assist in arranging the old songs. Thomson 
wrote: "For the honor of Caledonia I would fain hope the writer 
of The Cotter' s Saturday Night may be induced to take up the pen. 
If so, we shall be able to present the public with a collection infinitely 
more interesting than any that has yet appeared." Burns replied: 
"As the request you make to me will positively add to my enjoy- 
ments in complying with it, I shall enter into your undertaking with 
all the small portion of abilities I have, strained to their utmost by the 
impulse of enthusiasm. Only don't hurry me. ... In the honest 
enthusiasm with which I embark in your undertaking, to talk of 
money, wages, fee, hire, etc., would be downright prostitution of 
soul. A proof of each of the songs that I compose or amend I shall 
receive as a favor. In the rustic phrase of the season, ' Gude speed 
the work.' " 

THE DEIL'S AWA WI' THE EXCISEMAN. 

{Johnsofi's Museum, 1792.) 

It is claimed by Lockhart that this poem was the result of an adven- 
ture Burns once had with smugglers. In February, 1792, a suspicious 
looking craft was seen in the Solway ; and Burns, as excise officer, 
watched her until he was satisfied of her mission, when, backed by 
some dragoons whom he had summoned from Dumfries, he proceeded 
to board her. The vessel was condemned and sold. While Burns 
was waiting for the dragoons, whom he had sent a brother gauger, 
Lewars, to summon, he became indignant at the delay, and expressed 
himself harshly, when the guard suggested that he put the tardy gauger 
in the pillory by a song, and he at once composed this. Burns sent 
four carronades which were captured from the brig to the French 



328 NOTES, ' [1792] 

Government. They were stopped at Dover, and Burns was quietly 
reprimanded for lack of patriotism. 
Another chorus is: — 

" The deil's awa, the deil's awa, 

The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman ; 
He's danced awa, he's danced awa, 
He's danced awa wi' the Exciseman." 



HIGHLAND MARY. 
{Geo. Thomson'' s Coll., 1799.) 

In sending this to Thomson, Burns wrote: "The foregoing song 
pleases myself. I think it is in my happiest manner. You will see at 
first glance that it suits the air. The subject of the song is one of the 
most interesting passages of my youthful days, and I own that I 
should be much flattered to see the verses set to an air which would 
insure celebrity." 

" The poem is an excellent illustration of a certain happy arrange- 
ment of syllables, without any sameness of jingle at the ends of the 
lines. There is scarcely a true rhyme in the whole thirty-two verses, 
and yet the ear is perfectly satisfied with its musical rhythm." — 
Douglas. 

Among the many interesting events connected with this centenary 
year in Scotland is that of the dedication of the monument to High- 
land Mary at Dumbarton, her birthplace. 

BESSIE AND HER SPINNIN-WHEEL. 

{ Johnson^ s Mnseuiii, 1792.) 

In matters of political and social economy Burns is in accord with 
all the great poets who believe more in man than in machines. 
Goldsmith sang : — 

"A bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroyed, can never be supplied." 



[1792] NOTES. 329 

Wordsworth, in The Excursion (Book VIII.), gives a luminous pic- 
ture of modern industrialism in its tendency to crush individuality in 
the interest of the machine. The picture is familiar to us. 

" Men, maidens, youtlis, 
Mother and little children, boys and girls, 
Enter, and each the wonted task resumes 
Within this temple, where is offered up 
To Gain, the master idol of the realm. 
Perpetual sacrifice." 

Professor Blackie says, "The Celtic girl who stands by a spinning- 
machine in some titanic Glasgow manufactory, merely to correct its 
occasional false strokes, is a much less hearty, a much less noble, and 
a much less interesting creature in every respect, than the Highland 
nighean of a hundred years ago in a breezy hill cottage, who could 
spin and weave with her own hands, and milk the cow, and attend 
the dairy, and do a half dozen other things beside." 

BONNIE LESLEY. 

{Geo. Thojnsoti' s Coll., 1798.) 

In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, 1792, Burns says, '* Such, so delighting 
and so pure, were the emotions of my soul on meeting, the other day, 
with Miss Leslie Baillie, your neighbor. Mr. Baillie, with his two 
daughters, passing through Dumfries the other day on their way to 
England, did me the honor of calling on me ; on which I took my 
horse, and accompanied them fourteen or fifteen miles, and dined and 
spent the day with them. 'Twas about nine when I left them, and 
riding home I composed this song. You must know there is an old 
ballad beginning with, — 

' My bonnie Lizzie Baillie, 
I'll rowe ye in my plaidie.' " 

DUNCAN GRAY. 
{Geo. Thotiisofi' s Coll., 1798.) 

This rival of the racy and humorous Auld Robin Gray of Lady 
Barnard, and Come Under My Plaidie^ of McNeil, was sent to Thorn- 



330 NOTES. [1793] 

son with these words: " Duncan Gray is that kind of light horse gallop 
of an air which precludes sentiment. The ludicrous is its ruling force." 
Cunningham says Wilkie, the artist, made one of his best pictures out 
of the last four lines of the first stanza. 

ii. 3. Ailsa Craig : a rocky islet in the Firth of Clyde, near Ayr. 

ii. 7. "Hon. Arthur Erskine wrote to the poet, 'This is a line 
of itself that should make you immortal.' " — Douglas. 

John Stuart Blackie wrote many songs for the Scottish Students^ 
Song-Book, one of which is a parody on this poem. It alludes to one 
who had a hard time in his Greek. 

"Saml. Sumph cam' here for Greek. 

Ha, ha, the Greeking o't! 
Frae Dunnet Head he cam' for Greek. 

Ha, ha, the Greeking o't. 
Brains he had na unco much, 
His schoohng was a crazy crutch, 
But hke the crab he had a clutch; 

Ha, ha, the Greeking o't ! " 

He finally got through, and became a leader in the church: — 

" In the kirk assembly he 
Sits as big as big can be, 
Moderator Sam, D.D. — 
That s the crown o' the Greeking o't ! " 

Burns wrote an earlier song to this tune for Johnson's Museum, but 
it is much inferior to this. 



1793- 

GALLA WATER. 

{Geo. Thomson^ s Coll., 1793.) 

During this year Burns was busy writing for Thomson. He had 
now returned to his native language, and with most excellent results. 
"When Thomson asked for his assistance, Burns replied, " If you are for 
English verses, there is on my part an end of the matter. Whether in 
the simplicity of the ballad or the pathos of the song, I can only hope 



[1793] • NOTES. 331 

to please myself in being allowed at least a sprinkling of our native 
tongue." It is doubtless to Burns's visit to the Highlands that we 
owe this splendid song. He had touched up an old song for the 
Museum at an earlier date, and the lilt so possessed him that at 
the sight of the lovely river he burst forth in song. Galla Water 
rises in Midlothian, and joins the Tweed near Abbotsford. It has had 
an honored place in song. 

Cf. Yarrow Unvisited, Wordsworth. 

The old song which Burns's version supplanted is worth noting : — 

Chorus — Braw, braw lads o' Gala Water, 
Bonnie lads o' Gala Water; 
London lads will ne'er compare 
Wi' the braw, braw lads o' Gala Water. 

The' barley rigs are fair to see, 

Flocks o' sheep are meikle better ; 
And oats will shake on a windy day, 

When the lambs will play by Gala Water. 
Braw, braw lads, etc. 

London lads are black wi' reek, 

Tevi'dale lads are little better; 
But let them a' say what they will, 

The gree gaes ay down Gala Water. 
Braw, braw lads, etc. 

There's Blindilee and Torwoodlee, 

And Galashiels that rides the water; 
But young Ha'tree he bears the gree 
Of a' the Pringles o' Gala Water. 
Braw, braw lads, etc. 

Pringle was the laird of Gala Hill, and the name still survives in 
Galashiels. The tourist by the Waverley route now sees the manu- 
facturing town of Galashiels where, in the time of this ballad, there 
was only a few thatched houses on the Selkirk side of the water." 
— W. C. Douglas. 

When Burns sent this to Thomson in January, he wrote, "Many 
returns of the season to you, my dear sir. How comes on your publi- 
cation? Will this be of any service to you? " 

In the chorus of some texts we have There' s prefixed to first verse ; 
and in the second, Ye wander thro' for They rove amang. 



332 NOTES. . [1793] 

WANDERING WILLIE. 

{,Geo. Thomson^ s Coll., 1793.) 

The old song published by Herd, voL ii., p. 140: — 

" Here awa, there awa, here awa, Willie, 
Here awa, there awa, here awa, hame," 

must have suggested these verses. 

Professor Blackie says in his Scottish So7ig, " Of these love-songs of 
parting, not a fevs^ of the best are by Burns, the fire and force of whose 
amorous passion, when in full career of enjoyment, was not more sig- 
nificant of his intensely songful and soulful nature than the deep pathos 
and delicate tenderness of his strains of bereavement." 

This song is a revision of the following, Burns's first draft: — 

" Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie, 

Now tired with wandering, haud awa hame ; 
Come to my bosom, my ae only dearie. 

And telt me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. 
Loud blew the cauld winter winds at our parting; 

It was na the blast brought the tear to my e'e : 
Now welcome the summer, and welcome my Willie, 

The summer to nature, my Willie to me. 

Ye hurricanes rest in the care of your slumbers, 

O how your wild horrors a lover alarms ! 
Awaken ye breezes, row gently ye billows. 

And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms. 
But if he's forgotten his faithfullest Nannie, 

O still flow between us, thou wide roaring main ; 
M^y I never see it, may I never trow it, 

But dying believe that my Willie's my ain." 

Both Mrs. Walter Riddel and Mrs. M'Lehose have been mentioned 
as the heroine of this poem. 

JESSIE. 

{Geo. Thomsoti's Coll., 1798.) 

"The heroine of this poem was Jessie Staig, daughter of Provost 
Staig of Dumfries. She married the son of the Laird of Dalswinton, 
the poet's old landlord. She died in early life, but her beauty and 



I 



[1793] NOTES. 333 

gentleness are still remembered." — Cunningham. She died at the 
age of twenty-six, and was buried in Dumfries churchyard. 

Burns wrote to Thomson (1793), "One hint let me give you, — 
whatever Mr. Pleyel does, let him not alter one iota of the original 
Scottish airs, I mean in the song department; but let our national 
music preserve its native features. They are, I own, frequently wild 
and irreducible to the modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, per- 
haps, depends a great part of their effect." 

THE SODGER'S RETURN. 

{Geo, Tho7nsotC s Coll., 1793.) 

Scott tells us that when Burns visited Edinburgh, 1 786-1 787, he 

saw him at the house of Professor Fergusson, and that he remembered 

how Burns was affected by a print of Bunbury's representing a soldier 

lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery beside him, and his 

widow, with a child in her arms, standing by. Underneath were these 

lines: — , 

"Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden s plain, 

Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain," etc. 

" He actually shed tears," says Scott, " and asked whose lines they 
were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered. Burns 
rewarded me with a look and a word which I still recollect with great 
pleasure." 

This poem was suggested by Burns seeing an old soldier pass the 
door of the inn at Brownhill, near Dumfries. He called him in, and 
got him to tell him stories of war. 

This pathetic ballad makes an excellent setting for the Scots 7vha* 
hae. For richness and variety of heart experience Burns is a rival 
of Shakespeare; most of our loves and our tears are reflected in his 
work. 

The air of this song is taken from one of Ramsay's, "The Mill, the 

Mill, O." 

" Beneath a green shade, I fand a fair maid 

Was sleeping sound and still, O, 

A' lowing wi' love, my fancy did rove 

Around her wi' good will, O." 



334 NOTES. [1793] 

"This poem," says Cunningham, " was sung in every vale, and on 
every hill, in every cot-house, village, and town." 



LOGAN BRAES. 

iCurrie, 1800.) 

Burns wrote to Thomson: " Have you ever, my dear sir, felt your 
bosom ready to burst with indignation on reading of those mighty vil- 
lains, who divide kingdom against kingdom, desolate provinces, and 
lay nations waste, out of the wantonness of ambition, or often from 
still more ignoble passions? In a mood of this kind to-day I recol- 
lected the air of ' Logan Water. ' If I have done anything at all 
like justice to my feelings, the following song, composed in three- 
quarters of an hour's lucubrations in my elbow chair, ought to have 
some merit." 

An old song is as follows : — 

" By Logan Streams that rin sae deep, 
Fu' aft wi' glee I've herded sheep; 
I've herded sheep, or gather'd slaes, 
Wi' my dear lad on Logan braes, 
But wae's my heart, thae days are gane, 
And fu' o' grief I herd my lane; 
While my dear lad maun face his faes, 
Far, far from me and Logan braes." 



THERE WAS A LASS. 

{Currie, 1800.) 

In his letter to Thomson, Burns says: " I have just finished the fol- 
lowing ballad, and as I think it in my best style I send it to you. Mr. 
Clarke, who wrote down the air from Mrs. Burns's wood-note wild, is 
very fond of it." The heroine is Miss M'Murdo of Drumlanrig, and 
Burns sent the song to the family. Mr. Clarke was a music-teacher in 
the M'Murdo family. 



[i793] NOTES. 335 

BANNOCKBURN. 

{Jjeo. ThofHsofi's Coll., 1799.) 

When Burns visited Galloway he was accompanied by fellow ex- 
ciseman Mr. Syme, who preserved a record of the journey. Mr. Syme 
says that after visiting Mr. Gordon at Kenmure, they passed over the 
moors to Gatehouse in a wild storm: " The sky was sympathetic with 
the wretchedness of the soil. It became lowering and dark, the winds 
sighed hollow, the lightning gleamed, the thunders rolled. The poet 
enjoyed the awful scene. He spoke not a word, but seemed rapt in 
meditation. In a little while the rain began to fall. It poured in 
floods upon us; and what do you think Burns was about? He was 
charging the English army along with Bruce at Bannockburn." Two 
days later, when they were returning from St. Mary's Isle to Dum- 
fries, " he was engaged in the same manner ; and the next day he pro- 
duced me the address of Bruce to his troops, and gave a copy to 
Dalzell." This seems explicit enough; but when Burns sent it to 
Thomson he wrote: *' There is a tradition which I have met with in 
many places in Scotland, that the old air Hey, tiittie, taitie was Robert 
Bruce's march at the Battle of Bannockburn. This thought, in yes- 
ternight's evening walk, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the 
theme of liberty and independence which I threw into a kind of Scot- 
tish ode, fitted to the air that we might suppose to be the gallant royal 
Scot's address to his heroic followers on that eventful morning. The 
accidental recollection of that glorious struggle for freedom, associated 
with the glowing ideas of some struggle of the same nature, not quite 
so ancient, roused my rhyming mania." Burns made the visit to Gal- 
loway in July. The above letter was dated September, but there seems 
to be no serious conflict in the two statements. Christopher North 
says, " We can more readily believe that Burns wrote ' yesternight's 
evening walk ' to save himself the trouble of entering into any detail 
of his previous study of the subject, than that Syme told a downright 
lie." Carlyle says: "This Dithyrambic was composed on horseback, 
in riding in the middle of a tempest, over the wildest Galloway moor 
in company with Mr. Syme. So long as there is warm blood in the 



33^ NOTES, [1793] 

heart of Scotchmen or man, it will move in fierce thrills under this 
war ode, the best we believe that was ever written by any man." 

In the original letter by Burns, there is a line of patriotic prose in 
conclusion: "So may God ever defend the cause of truth and liberty 
as he did that day ! Amen " (R. B.). 

If one has ever heard a company of Scotch soldiers sing this noble 
song, one will not soon forget the thrill and the fervor of it. 

Some texts insert glorious before victorie in fourth verse, and 
Edward is prefixed to the eighth. In the twelfth. Traitor^ Coward^ 
is found in place of Let him; in the sixteenth, Caledonian is found 
in place of Let him ; and in the twentieth, Forward is prefixed. 

SONNET ON HEARING A THRUSH SING. 
{Currie, iSoo.) 

These lines were written in Burns's favorite resort, — the woods of 
Cluden by the side of the Nith. " In summer he loved it," says Cun- 
ningham, "for then the ground was covered with daisies and wild 
hyacinths, the odor of honeysuckle came from the thorn, and the 
song of the birds from the romantic groves, which, as with a garland, 
enclose the ruins of Lincluden ; and in winter he loved to look on the 
mingling waters of the Cluden and Nith, and see them swelling from 
bank to brae." Cf. A Vision, p. 21 1. Hark! the Mavis, p. 213. 

There are three clearly marked types of the lyric in English poetry, 
— the lyric of passion uttering itself in the artlessness of art, coming 
from the heart and going to the heart ; the lyric of contemplation, deep 
and impassioned ; and the lyric of careful, deliberate, and pains-taking 
work ; the lyrics of Burns, Wordsworth, and Gray respectively. 

DAINTY DAVIE. 

{Geo. Thofftson s Coll., 1799.) 

Burns wrote to Thomson, "The words, 'Dainty Davie,' glide so 
sweetly in the air, that to a Scot's ear any song to it, without Davie 
being the hero, would have a lame effect." 

Cunningham says, " Dainty Davie is the name of an old merry 



[i794] NOTES. 33/ 

song from which Burns has borrowed nothing save the title and the 
measure. It relates to the adventure of David Williamson, a preacher 
of the days of the Covenant." 

The pleasure the poet had in the work of ballad-making is seen in 
a letter to Thomson, April, 1793. 

"You cannot imagine how much this business of composing for your 
publication has added to my enjoyments. What with my early attach- 
ment for ballads, your books, etc., ballad-making is now as completely 
my hobby-horse as ever fortification was Uncle Toby's ; so I'll e'en 
canter it away till I come to the limit of my race (God grant that I 
may take the right side of the winning-post!), and then cheerfully 
looking back on th-e honest folks with whom I have been happy, I 
shall say or sing, ' Sae merry as we a' hae been ! ' and raising my 
last looks to the whole human race, the last words of the voice of 
Coila shall be, 'Good-night, and joy be wi' you a'.'" 

1794. 

A VISION. 

(^Currie, iSoo.) 

The ruins of Lincluden, at the junction of the Cluden and the 
Nith, was a favorite resort of Burns. It was full of historic associa- 
tions, and suggested to him this vision of Liberty at a time when Eng- 
land and France were at war. The old Abbey was founded in the 
reign of Malcolm IV. 

Cf. 'Hark ! the Mavis, and Sonnet on Hearing a Thrush Sing. 

The title of the first lyric, of which this is a revision, was The Alin- 
^trel of Lincluden. Burns had as little sympathy with the political 
cause of England as had Wordsworth. He had once proposed the 
toast: " May our success in the present war be equal to the justice of 
our cause." 

Cf. Wordsworth, Prelude. Book X. 315-330. 

" If there did not something else go to the making of literature be- 
sides mere literary parts, even the best of them, how long ago the old 
bards and biblical writers would have been superseded by the learned 
professors and gentlemanly versifiers of later times ! . . . Does any 



33^ NOTES. [1794] 

one doubt that the great poets and artists are made up mainly of the 
most common universal human and heroic characteristics ? Good 
human stock is the main dependence. No good poet ever appeared 
except from a race of good fighters, great eaters, good sleepers, and 
good breeders." — John Burroughs. 

HARK! THE MAVIS. 
{Ciirrie, iSoo.) 

In 1790 Burns had sent to Johnson's Museum an old song, Gz' the 
Yowes, retouched and enlarged. On sending this to Thomson, he 
wrote, " In a solitary stroll which I took to-day, I tried my hand on 
a few pastoral lines, following up the idea of the old chorus which I 
would preserve." Cf. A Vision, a.nd Sonnet on Hearing a Thrush. 

Professor Veitch says, "There is no love-song worthy of the name 
in all the Scottish songs, in which the passion is not associated with 
the scenery." 

iii. I. Clouden : A little river near Dumfries. 

A RED, RED ROSE. 
{Johnson'' s Mjtseurit, 1796.) 

The song that suggested these lines to Burns was written by Lieu- 
tenant Hinches as a farewell to his sweetheart. The first stanza is : — 

" O fare thee well, my dearest dear, 

Aud fare thee well a while ; * 

But I am coming back again, 
Tho' it were ten thousand mile." 

" This little love-chant has been a universal favorite since it was 
first given to the world." — Douglas. 

"Only those books are for the making of men into which a man 
has gone in the making. Mere professional skill and sleight of hand, 
of themselves, are to be apprised as lightly in letters as in war or gov- 
ernment, or any kind of leadership. Strong native qualities only 
avail in the long run ; and the more these dominate over the artificial 
endowments, the more we are refreshed and enlarged." — John Bur- 
roughs. 



[i794] ' NOTES. 339 



MY CHLORIS. 
{Currie, iSoo.) 

The heroine of this song, and of the two following, was a flaxen- 
haired daughter of a farmer at Kemmis Ha', on the banks of the Nith.' 
Her name was Jean Lorimer. 

" She's bonnie, blooming, straight, and tall." 

The first song Burns addressed to her (1791) was in the interest 
of a fellow exciseman, John Gillespie, who was fascinated with her 
beauty. 

The first stanza is: — 

" Sweet closes the ev'ning on Craigie-burn-wood, 
And blithely awakens the morrow ; 
But the pride of the spring in the Craigie-burn-wood 
Can yield to me nothing but sorrow." 

She declined John, and married a man who proved to be a worthless 
fellow ; she refused to live with him, and returned to her parents. 
Burns had great sympathy for her, and was so much impressed by her 
beauty that he wrote several songs in her honor. The second song — 
Poortith Cauld — has an element of the sermon in it, but the others 
are love lyrics. Here is the last stanza : — 

" How blest the humble cotter's fate ! 
He woos his simple dearie ; 
The silly bogles, wealth and state, 
Can never make him eerie." 

That Burns's admiration for Chloris was concealed from his wife, 
or that she resented it, is disproven by the following letter, which 
Burns wrote to Mr. Lorimer : — 

" My dear Sir, — I called for you yesternight, but could not find you. I 
want you to dine with me to-day. I have two honest Midlothian farmers 
with me, who have travelled three-score miles to renew old friendship with 
the poet ; and I promise you a pleasant party, a plateful of hotch-potch, and a 
bottle of good sound port. Mrs. Burns desired me, yesternight, to beg the 
favor of Jeany to come and partake with her ; and she was so obliging as to 



340 NOTES. [1794] 

promise that she would. If you can come I shall take it very kind. Dinner 
at three. Yours, 

Robert Burns. 
To Mr. William Lorimer, senior, Farmer, 

Douglas." 

Burns wrote to Mr. Thomson: " I like you for entering so candidly 
and kindly into the story of ^Ma chere aniie.'' Conjugal love is a 
passion which I deeply feel and highly venerate; but somehow it does 
not make such a figure in poesy as that other species of passion, 
'where love is liberty and nature law.' 

" Musically speaking, the first is an instrument of which the gamut 
is scanty and confined, but the tones inexpressibly sweet, while the last 
has powers equal to all the intellectual modulation of the human soul. 
On my visit the other day to my fair Chloris (that is the poetic name 
of the lovely goddess of my inspiration), she suggested an idea, which 
I, on my return from the visit, wrought into the following song." 

Professor John Stuart Blackie says, "Those who do not understand 
what Platonic love means may get a better notion of it from this lan- 
guage of our ploughman bard than from all the dialogues of the great 
Athenian idealist." 

i. I. This is the reading of the MS. ; but in 1796 Burns changed it 
to, " Behold, my love," etc. 

i. 4. Jlaxeii hair : Changed \.o Ji owing xw 1796. 

In another song sent to Thomson, 1794, — 

SHE SAYS SHE LO'ES ME BEST OF A', 

we have — 

" Sae flaxen were her ringlets, 
Her eyes of a darker blue." 

THE CHARMING MONTH OF MAY. 
{Geo. Thoinsofi's Coil., 1799.) 

In November, 1794, Burns wrote to Mr. Thomson of the Musetwi as 
follows: — 

'• Despairing of my own powers to give you variety enough in Eng- 
lish songs, I have been turning over old collections, to pick out songs 



[i794] NOTES. 341 

of which the measure is something similar to what I want; and with 
a little alteration, so as to suit the rhythm and the air exactly, to give 
you them for your work. A song which, under the same first verse, 
you will find in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany ^ I have cut down for 
an English dress to your Daintie Davie, as follows." 

Burns's first stanza is almost verbatim from Ramsay's, as is the first 
half of the second; the rest of Ramsay's is as follows: — 

" Kind Phoebus now began to rise, 
And paint with red the eastern skies ; 
Struck with the glory of her eyes, 

He shrinks behind a cloud, — 
Her mantle on a bough she lays, 
And all her glory she displays ; 
She left all nature in amaze. 

And skipp'd into the wood, — 

The bleating flock that then came by, 
Soon as the charming nymph they spy, 
They drop their hoarse and rueful cry, 

And dance around the brooks. 
The woods are glad, the meadows smile, 
And Forth, which foamed and roar'd erewhile, 
Glides calmly down as smooth as oil, 

Through all its charming crooks." 

** Take a look at the bombast original, and you will be surprised 
that I have made so much of it." — R. B. 



LASSIE Wr THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS. 

{Currte, iSoo.) 

Of this poem Burns wrote, " It has at least the merit of a regular 
pastoral ; the vernal morn, the summer noon, the autumnal evening, 
and the winter night are regularly rounded." 

Cunningham says, "Those acquainted with the poet's life and 
habits of study will perceive that he is of that class of poets who wrote 
best from what they see ; they look, and talk, and think, till their 
feelings and fancy rise into the region of poesy, and then empty their 
hearts into their verse. Dumfries is a small town ; a few steps carried 



342 NOTES. [1794] 

Burns to green lanes, daisied braesides, and quiet stream-banks. Men 
returning from labor were sure to meet him ' all under the light of the 
moon,' sauntering forth as if he had no aim; his hands behind his 
back, his hat turned up a little behind by the shortness of his neck, 
and noting all, yet seeming to note nothing. Yet those who got near 
without being seen might hear him humming some old Scottish air, 
and fitting verses to it — the scene and the season supplying the im- 
agery, and the Jeanies, the Nancies, the Phillies, and the Jessies of 
his admiration furnishing bright eyes, white hands, and wavy tresses, 
as the turn of the song required." 

The original as here given had five stanzas ; but some texts give 
only four, omitting the second, — one of the best stanzas in the song. 



CONTENTED WP LITTLE. 

{Geo. Thomson'' s Coll., 1799.) 

BuRNs's health was now giving way under his stormy experiences ; 
and he says, " I fear I am about to suffer from the follies of my youth." 
It was at this time that he wrote this exceedingly optimistic song. 
He intended it as a true picture of himself ; for when he sent it to 
Thomson he wished a vignette of his picture to be prefixed to the song, 
so that "the portrait of my face and the picture of my mind may go 
down the stream together." 

MY NANNIE'S AWA. 

{Geo. Thomson" s Coll., 1799O 

The heroine of this poem is not known, although it is probably Mrs. 
M'Lehose. 

Mrs. M'Lehose entertained Burns frequently at her house on Calton 
Hill, Edinburgh. An intimacy resulted, which is revealed in a long 
correspondence now published. Of Burns's letters she said, "They 
are precious memorials of an acquaintance the recollection of which 
would influence me were I to live till fourscore." 



[1795] NOTES. 343 

1795- 

FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT. 

{C7irrie, iSoo.) 

We now come to the closing years of Burns's poetical work. From 
the first he had been a revolutionist, and as such he remained to the 
last. It was natural that he should uphold the principles of the French 
Revolution with the same zeal that he showed for the great leaders in 
Scotland's struggles against oppression. This loyalty to right cost him 
dearly ; yet he was not to be scared nor bought, — he would speak out. 
On the first day of the new year he gave to the world one of the clear- 
est and soundest songs on Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity that ever 
came from mortal lips, — "A soul-animating strain," indeed. When 
these principles shall become the fundamentals of social and political 
life, Christianity will have passed from creed to life, in which it first 
manifested itself. 

The note of the brotherhood of man and the federation of the world 
came into English poetry as a result of the Revolution ; and the prelu- 
sive notes to the chorus of the great singers, Burns, Wordsworth, and 
Coleridge, were sounded by Cowper and Crabbe, 

"Not in Cowper, not in Crabbe," says Stopford Brooke, "not in 
any of the after poets, was the deep cry of the Revolution more clearly 
heard than in this fine song. The practical result of much of Burns's 
poetry in his age was to do similar work to that of Christ." 

"Stronger words he never wrote," says Professor Shairp. It has 
been quoted, they say, by Beranger in France, and by Goethe in Ger- 
many, and is the word which springs up in the mind of all foreigners 
when they think of Burns." 

Professor Blackie, in concluding his work Scottish Song with this 
piece, says, " In this song we have the finest combination of practical 
philosophy, evangelical piety, and political wisdom that ever was put 
into a popular song. In this song he soars above all party feelings, 
and merely announces plainly what is the poet's mission, no less than 
the prophet's, — to preach irom the housetop that there is no respect 
of persons with God." 



344 NOTES. [1795] 

When Burns sent this to Thomson he wrote, "A great critic 
(Aiken) on songs says that love and wine are the exclusive themes 
for song-writing. The following is on neither subject, and conse- 
quently is no song ; but will be allowed, I think, to be two or three 
pretty good prose thoughts inverted into rhyme." 

"Burns was one of the people, and he spoke for the people. He 
broke the pathetic silence of the toiling multitudes with a voice so 
sweet and strong and true that it rang into every heart that longs for 
freedom and into every home where liberty is dear." — E. Charlton 
Black. 



THE DUMFRIES VOLUNTEERS. 
(Currie, 1800.) 

If the previous poem was characteristic of Burns's social creed, this 
is as characteristic of his loyalty to his native land when that land was 
threatened from without. As he had not hesitated to show his love of 
freedom by praising Washington and criticising the Tory ministry under 
Pitt, so now, when invasion was threatened from France, he showed his 
patriotism by joining the Dumfries Volunteers; he had fought with the 
pen, and he was ready to back up his pen with his sword. This act 
must have disarmed those political pharisees who saw disloyalty in his 
attitude toward the revolution in France and America. 

" We find him," says Professor Blackie, " in all the dignity of Ker- 
seymere breeches, short blue coat faced with red, and round hat, en- 
rolled in the loyal ranks of the Dumfries Volunteers." 

"I remember," says Cunningham, "his swarthy face, his very 
ploughman stoop, and indifferent dexterity in handling his arms." 

The incident which gave rise to this poem was characteristic and 
natural. Of course it was expected by the volunteers that whenever 
there was any patriotic speaking to be done, their soldier-poet would 
be ready with his wit and wisdom. Accordingly, when at a public 
dinner, Burns was asked to propose a toast, he rose amid rapturous 
applause and gave the toast, " Gentlemen, may we never see the 
French, and may the French never see us," there was the greatest dis- 



[1795] NOTES. 345 

appointment. Burns felt disturbed, and when he returned home wrote 
these verses, 

" This song hit the taste and suited the feelings of the humbler 
classes. Hills echoed with it; it was heard in every street, and did 
more to right the mind of the rustic part of the population than all the 
speeches of Pitt and Dundas." — Cunningham. 

Copies of it in sheet song were distributed to the corps to which 
Burns belonged. 

i. 5. Corsicon: A hill near the Nith. 

i. 6. Criffel : A mountain near the Nith. 

The MS. of this poem is in the possession of J. Dick, Esq., Stirling. 
In it the last two verses of each stanza as here given are repeated, with 
the exception that in the first stanza the seventh verse begins we^ II 
ne^er permit^ and in the second, the seventh verse begins No ! never. 



ADDRESS TO THE WOODLARK. 

{Geo. Thonison^s Coll., 179S.) 

Quite as much as Wordsworth, Burns was an open-air poet. He 
had but a small library ; but his shidy was large and airy — nothing 
less than the woods, the fields, and the streams of his Lowland home. 
Over these he shed a lustre as unfading as that which the poet of 
*' plain living and high thinking" cast upon the hills and vales of 
Cumberland and Westmoreland. 

" Huge Criffel's hoary top ascends 
By Skiddaw seen." 

This pathetic little song is colored with the sombre hue of the set- 
ting of this mighty orb of song. 

Mr. Matthew Arnold says: " If I were ever asked where English 
poetry got these three things, its turn for style, its turn for melancholy, 
and its turn for natural magic for catching and rendering the charm of 
nature in a wonderfully near and vivid way, — I should say, with some 
doubt, that it got much of its turn for style from a Celtic source ; with 
less doubt, that it got much of its melancholy from a Celtic source ; 



34^ NOTES. [1795] 

with no doubt at all, that from a Celtic source it got nearly all its 
natural magic. " 

Mr. Douglas gives the following, which was in pencil MS. in the 
poet's own hand, — evidently an early draft of this poem. 

ON HEARING A BIRD SING WHILE MUSING ON CHLORIS, 

" Sing on, sweet songster. O' the brier, 
Nae stealthy hunter-foot is near ; 
O sootlie a hapless lover's ear, 
Aad dear as life I'll prize thee. 

Again, again that tender part. 
That I may learn thy melting art, 
For surely that would touch the heart 
O' her that still denies me. 

O was thy mistress, too, unkind, 
And heard thee as the careless wind ? 
For nocht but Love and Sorrow joined. 
Sic notes of woe could wauken. 

The nightingale undoubtedly occupies first place in the affection of 
poets, and the lark is an easy second ; it is companion " of the plough- 
man, the shepherd, the harvester — whose nest is in the stubble, and 
whose tryst is in the clouds." 

Cf, Shelley, Ode to a Skylark; Wordsworth, To a Skylark. 

" Bird of the wilderness, 
Blithesome and cumberless, 
Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea I 
Emblem of happiness. 
Blest be thy dwelling-place — 
Oh to abide in the desert with thee ! " 

Hogg. 

INSCRIPTION. 

'tis friendship's pledge. 

The fate of Burns's Chloris was a sad one. Her father lost his 
property, and she became a wanderer. She lived in Edinburgh the 
last years of her life, and died in 1 83 1. Mr. Douglas gives a letter of 
hers, in which she says ; — 



[1795] NOTES. 347 

" Burns's Chloris is infinitely obliged to Mrs. for her kind 

attention. Ruth was kindly treated by Boaz ; perhaps Burns's Chloris 
may enjoy similar fate in the fields of men of talent and worth. Mch. 
2, 1825." 

When Burns sent one of his songs on Chloris to Thomson, he wrote 
as follows: — 

"The lady is not a little proud that she is to make so distinguished 
a figure in your collection, and I am not a little proud that I have it 
in my power to please her so much.'' 

"The great charm of a woman, in Burns's eyes, was always her 
womanhood, and not the angelic mixture which other poets find in 
her." — Hawthorne. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 
{Geo. Thojnson'' s Coll., 1799-) 

It is interesting to note that when the poet was himself in the 
depths and facing the inevitable, he possessed the "luxury of exist- 
ence," — the power to sympathize with those who had been his fellows 
in suffering. Alexander Cunningham was one of the Edinburgh friends 
whose love and loyalty were shown throughout Burns's life. He was 
in turn loved by Burns, who was wont to place him with the Earl of 
Glencairn, his patron in art. When he suffered by the unfaithfulness 
of his fair lady, Burns consoled him by sending him many songs, and 
among them this beautiful lyric. " With these five double stanzas," 
says Douglas, was sent a song to Chloris; 

O BONNIE WAS YON ROSY BRIER, 

" O bonnie was yon rosy brier, 

That blooms sae fair frae haunt o' man ; 
And bonnie she, and ah, liow dear! 
It shaded frae the e'enin' sun. 

Yon rosebuds in the morning dew, 

How pure among the leaves sae green ; 
But purer was the lover's vow 

They witness'd in their shade yestreen. 



348 NOTES. [1795] 

All in its rude and prickly bower, 

That crimson rose, how sweet and fair! 
But love is far a sweeter flower 

Amid life's thorny path o' care. 

The pathless wild, and wimpling bum, 

Wi' Chloris in my arms, be mine ; 
And I the world, nor wish, nor scorn, 

Its joys and griefs alike resign. " 

These poems formed the contents of one sheet transcribed by the 
poet for his "very much valued friend Mr. Cunningham," on 3d 
August in 1795, and signed " Coila." It is addressed thus: " To Mr. 
Cunningham, une bagatelle de I'amitie." 

"On the 20th January thereafter," says Douglas, "the poet, as if 
just awakened out of a trance, thus addressed Mrs. Riddel : ' The 
Muses have not quite forsaken me. The following detached stanzas I 
intend to interweave in some disastrous tale of a shepherd despairing 
beside a clear stream,' ' L'amour, toujours I'amour.' He then tran- 
scribes the three central verses of this poem to Mr. Cunningham with- 
out variation." 

The last letter he wrote to Mr. Cunningham was on July 10, 1796, 
only a few days before his death. In it he says: " Alas! my friend, 
I fear the voice of the bard will soon be heard among you no more ! 
For these eight or ten months I have been ailing. You would not 
know me if you saw me ! " 

Alluding to the fact that so many in Burns's time recognized him, 
and valued him at his true worth, Hawthorne says: — 

"It is far easier to know and honor a poet when his fame has taken 
shape in the spotlessness of marble, than when the actual man comes 
staggering before you besmeared with the sordid stains of his daily 
life. For my part, I chiefly wonder that his recognition dawned so 
brightly while he was yet living. There must have been something 
very grand in his immediate presence, some strangely impressive char- 
acteristic in his natural behavior, to have caused him to seem like a 
demigod so soon," 



[i796] NOTES. 349 

1796. 

ALTHO' THOU MAUN NEVER BE MINE. 

{Geo. Thomsoti' s Coll., 1799.) 

Early in this year Burns went to the shores of the Solway to try 
the sea-bathing; and while there he met Mrs. Riddel, whom he had 
not seen for some time. She wrote, " I was struck with his appear- 
ance on entering the room. He seemed already touching the brink of 
eternity. His first salutation was, ' Well, madam, have you any com- 
mands for the other world? ' He spoke of his death without any of 
the ostentation of philosophy, but with firmness as well as feeling, as 
an event likely to happen very soon. . . . His anxiety for his family 
seemed to hang heavy on him. ... He said he was well aware that 
his death would create some noise, and that every scrap of his writing 
would be revived against him to the injury of his future reputation. 
... I had seldom seen his mind greater or more collected." This 
prediction of his was not wide of the mark. What the many-headed 
beast did the world knows, and is ashamed of. 

He returned to Dumfries in July, and here he died on the 21st. 
During his last illness he was nursed by a young neighbor lass, Jessy 
Lewars (Mrs. Burns being ill) ; and surely her ministrations were not 
without their reward, for this song and the following two have made 
her name known throughout the world. She was married in 1799 to 
one Thomson of Dumfries. A family of five sons and two daughters 
resulted from this union. In 1844, at the Burns festival at Ayr, she 
and her husband sat next to the relatives of the poet, on the right 
hand of the chairman. She survived her husband several years, and 
lived at Maxwelltown, near Dumfries. She died in 1855, and was 
buried near the mausoleum of the bard. 

" W^e recollect no poet of Burns's susceptibility who comes before 
Hs from the first and abides with us to the last with a total want of 
affectation." — Carlyle. 



350 NOTES. [1796] 



O, WERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST. 

(Currie, 1800.) 

Professor Shairp says that one morning the poet told Jessy if she 
would play to him some favorite tune for which she would like new 
words, he would try to furnish them. She sat down at the piano, and 
played over several times the air of an old song beginning thus: — 

" The robin cam' to the wren's nest, 
And keekit in, and keekit in," 

whereupon Burns composed this beautiful song. 

Mendelssohn composed a melody for the words of Burns's song, 
which he arranged as a duet. 

Dr. John Brown declared this to be " the most perfect, the finest 
love-song in our or in any language ; the love being affectionate, 
more than passionate, — love in possession, not in pursuit." 

There are two classes of poets as related to each individual reader, 
— those who are admired and revered, and those who are loved. We 
do not love Homer and ^schylus, Virgil and Dante, Shakespeare and 
Milton; they are too far away from us; they are not touched with the 
feeling of our infirmities; but we love Robert Burns, even with all his 
faults, and possibly because many of them are so like our own. These 
faults he was not slow to acknowledge, for sincerity was the funda- 
mental note of his being. He would not wish us to love his faults, 
nor to forget them, but to profit by them. 

The pathos of these last days at Dumfries is very intense. There 
is no sadder picture in history than that of this sweet soul crushed 
under the burden too heavy for it to sustain, and yielding its divine 
fragrance to the world. 

'"Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels 
Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day 
Beside you, and lie down at night by you, 
"Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep, 
And all at once they leave you, and you know them ; 
We are so fooled, so cheated ! " 

Burns's last letters were to his oldest and most loyal friends, — 
Cunningham, Mrs. Dunlop, and Mrs. Riddel. He does not forget 



[i796j NOTES. 351 

to thank them for all the pleasure they have given him. Perhaps we 
ought not to complain if he did not ; but yet we have to ask why it 
was that those who knew him, in those days when he shed such a 
lustre upon the inner circle of the Edinburgh gentry, did not lift 
a hand to ease him of his great load. Could he but hear the voices 
which rise upon every hand in this centenary year, from poet, press, 
and pulpit even, he might praise the early martyrdom which was but 
for time, while he views the apotheosis which is for eternity. Not the 
least of his satisfaction would come, I fancy, from the thought that he 
had influenced other poets. Mr. William Watson has alluded to the 
passing of Burns and the coining of Wordsworth and Coleridge, as 
follows : — 

" Bright was his going forth, but clouds ere long 

Whelmed him ; in gloom his radiance set, and those 
Twin morning stars of the new century's song, 

Those morning stars that sang together, rose." 

Of his death on the 2ist of July, 1796, Alexander Smith writes: — 

"Mighty is the hallowing of death to all — to him more than to 
most. Farmer no longer, exciseman no longer, subject no longer to 
criticism, to misrepresentation, to the malevolence of mean natures and 
evil tongues, he lay there, the great poet of his country, dead too early 
for himself and for it. He had passed from the judgment of Dumfries, 
and made his appeal to Time." 

" In his family Burns was the watchful, kindly, diligent father, — 
not to be spoken of in the same day with the father who neglects his 
household for himself, who forgets their need, and loses their love ; 
and the man who degrades him as an habitual drunkard, unable to 
meet life's daily duties, does not know what he is speaking of." — Dr. 
Edward Everett Hale, address at the Burns Centennial, Boston, 
July 21, 1896. 

" We are near the century of Burns's death, and his fame stands 
beyond question higher than ever; and a fame, let us remember, not of 
the coteries, but, so to speak, of the equator." — Ernest Rhys. 

Dumfries is the least poetical of the homes of Burns ; yet, notwith- 
standing all its commonplace, one would as naturally omit going to 
Stratford in England, as to pass by Dumfries in Scotland. The house 



352 NOTES. [1796] 

in which he lived the last few years of his life, and in which he died, 
July 21, 1796, is a two-story stone house, with nothing to distinguish 
it from its neighbors. Burns's study and his bedchamber adjoining 
are upon the second floor. We can hardly believe that from this pro- 
saic place some of Burns's richest and sweetest songs were given to 
the world. The old Church of St. Michael's is in a more interesting 
section of the town, and here in the churchyard is the mausoleum of 
Burns. It stands over the vault in which rest the bones of the poet, 
Jean Armour, and some of his children. 

The monument is a sort of Grecian temple with dome and pillars. 
It was originally open to the weather, but is now enclosed with glass. 
In the floor is the gravestone which Jean had put upon the poet's 
grave before the monument was erected. Here is the marble statue 
of Burns at the plough, as he sees the Vision of the Muse of Cale- 
donia, and hears her call to join the tuneful choir. If we go into the 
plain old church, the attendant will point out to us the poet's family 
pew. 

** As we leave these somewhat melancholy scenes, we are reminded 
of the words of Wordsworth : — 

' Sighing I turned away ; but ere 
Night fell, I heard, or seemed to hear, 
Music that sorrow comes not near, 

A ritual hymn, 
Chanted in love that casts out fear 
By Seraphim.' " 

POEM ON PASTORAL POETRY. 

{Currie, iSoo.) 

The date of this is uncertain. Some place it in 1 791. I have put 
it the last in this collection because it was found in the poet's manu- 
script after his death, and because it is a fitting tribute to one of 
Burns's masters ; but most of all because it breathes the very atmos- 
phere of our poet's best work : — 

"Tliat charm that can the strongest quell, 
Tlie sternest move." 



[1796] NOTES. 353 

We have already seen Burns paying tribute to Ramsay for his work in 
restoring and resetting the old songs, as well as for his work in writ- 
ing new. He is in every way worthy of such tribute ; for by his Tea- 
Table Miscellany, published in 1724, he did for Scottish poetry what 
Cowper and Crabbe were to do for English poetry : he brought it 
back to the business and bosoms of the Scottish peasantry after its 
wanderings with the poets of the Stuart period. In this poem Burns 
gives Honest Allan a still higher tribute of restoring the pastoral in his 
Gentle Shepherd. Here for the first time were revealed the beauty 
and the power of the pastoral landscape of the Lowlands. 



Where a' the sweets of Spring and Summer grow 
Between twa birks, out o'er a little lin, 
The water fa's and makes a singin' din, 
A pool, breast-deep, beneath as clear as glass, 
Kisses with easy whiris the bord'ring grass; 
We'll end our washing while the morning's cool; 
And when the day grows het, we'll to the pool, 
There wash oursells — 'tis healthfu' now in May, 
And sweetly cauler on sae warm a day." 



Here indeed auld Nature is painted to the nines. 

Cf. Veitch, Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry (Ramsay); 
Mrs. Oliphant, Royal Edinburgh (Ramsay); Kingsley, Burns and 
His School. 

Mr. Matthew Arnold, in his lectures on Celtic literature, gives four 
characteristic modes of treating nature, — the conventional, the faith- 
ful, the Greek, the magical. He says that in each of the last three 
the eye is upon the object, " but with a difference; in the faithful way 
of handling nature, the eye is on the object, and that is all you can 
say; in the Greek, the eye is on the object, but lightness and bright- 
ness are added; in the magical, the eye is on the object, but charm 
and magic are added. In the conventional way of handling nature the 
eye is not on the object. What that means we all know. We have 
only to think of our eighteenth century poetry to call up any number 
of instances." Cf. Sharp, Lyra Celtica. 



354 NOTES. [1796] 

" Now he haunts his native land 
As an immortal youth ; his hand 

Guides every plough ; 
He sits beside each ingle-nook, 
His voice is in each rushing brook, 
Each rustling bough," 

Longfellow. 

" I fling my pebble on the cairn 
Of him, though dead, undying! 
Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn, 
Beneath her daisies lying. 

We love him, praise him, just for this; 

In every form and feature, 

Through wealth and want, through woe and bliss. 

He saw his fallen creature." 

Holmes. 

It is said that the Scotch sing by turns the Psalms of David and the 
songs of Burns. When John Stuart Blackie was dying he asked his 
servant to sing his favorite psalm, and said, "The Psalms of David 
and the songs of Burns; but mind, the psalmist first ! " 

Although Burns was a democrat, yet he cherished that symbolism 
which represented title to greatness. Here is the coat-of-arms which 
he described in a letter to Cunningham in March, 1792. 

"I am a bit of a herald, and shall give you, secundum artem, my 
arms. On a field, azure, a holly-bush, seeded, proper in base; a shep- 
herd's pipe and crook, saltier-wise, also proper in chief. On a wreath 
of the colors, a wood-lark, perching on a sprig of bay-tre«, proper for 
crest. Two mottoes, round the top of crest. Wood notes wild, at the 
bottom of the shield, in the usual place, Better a wee bush than nae 
bield.'' 

"Other poets may be the favorites of a class or a clique; Burns is 
the favorite of the whole world. The secret of this universal favor 
is to be found in the fact that he was born in a lowly condition of 
life, close to our mother earth, and gave utterance to the rudimentary 
sentiments, the abiding sorrows, and the constant yearnings of human 
nature." — Alfred Austin, Address at the Unveiling of the Statue 
to Burns at Irvine, July, 1896. 



BURNS IN OTHER TONGUES. 

The works of Burns have been translated into the following lan- 
guages : — 

German. Flemish. French. 

Swiss. African Dutch. Italian. 

Danish. Friesian, Latin. 

Norwegian. Bohemian. Scottish Gael. 

Swedish. Hungarian. Irish Gael. 

Dutch. Russian. Welsh. 

The Cotter'' s Saturday Night has been translated into twelve lan- 
guages; yohn Anderson^ eleven; Aidd Lang Syne and A l\Ian''s a 
Man^ ten; Tavi (9' Shanter, nine; To Mary in Heaven, nine, etc. 



RULES FOR PRONOUNCING SCOTCH WORDS. 

"The ch and gh have always the guttural sound (loch, bught); 
sound of the English diphthong oo is commonly spelled ozi (mou, fou) ; 
the French ti, a sound which often occurs in the Scottish language, 
is marked oo or tii (loof, guid). The a in genuine Scottish words, 
except when forming a diphthong (wae), or followed by an e mute, 
after a single consonant (saut), sounds like broad a in wall. The 
Scottish diphthong ae always (fae), and ea very often (lear, wean), like 
French e masculine. Scottish diphthong ey (fey) sounds like Latin 
^/." — Burns Glossary. 

Mr. Douglas says, "We are informed that all Burns's Ayrshire and 
Dumfriesshire countrymen pronounce ane (one) and ajice (once), yin 
and yince." 



355 



GLOSSARY. 



A', all. 

Abeigh, at a shy distance. 

Aboon, above. 

Abreed, in breadth. 

Ae, otie. 

Aften, often. 

A-gley, off the right line. 

Aiblins, perluips. 

Aik, a7i oak. 

Ain, o^vn. 

Aim, iron. 

Aims, irons. 

Airt, direction. 

Aith, an oath. 

Aiver, an old horse. 

Aizle, a hot cinder. 

Amaist, almost. 

Amang, among. 

An', a7id. 

Ance, once. 

Ane, one. 

Anes, ones. 

Anither, another. 

Ase, ashes. 

Asklent, obliquely. 

Asteer, astir. 

Aught, eight. 

Auld, old. 

Auld's, as old as. 

Ava, at all. 

Awa, away. 
Ay, always. 
Ayoiit, beyond. 



Baggie (dim. of hag), the stomach. 
Bairns, childre7t. 
Baimtime, a family of children. 
Baith, both. 
Ballats, ballads. 
Ban', band. 
Banes, bodies. 
Bardie, dim. of bard. 
Barmie, of, or like barm. 
Batts, the baits. 
Banks, cross-beams. 
Bauk-en', end of a bank or cross-beam. 
Bauld, bold. 

Bawk, an open space in a cornfield, gen- 
erally a ridge left untilled. 
Beastie, dim. of beast. 
Bellum, a noise, a7i attack. 
Bely ve, by attd by. 
Ben, into the spence or parlor. 

Bicker, a woodett dish. 

Bield, shelter. 

Bien, plentiftd. 

Biggin, building. 

Bill, a bull. 

Billie, a goodfelloav. 

Birdies, dim. of birds. 

Birks, birches. 

Birken, birclien. 

Birken shaw, a small birch wood. 

Birkie, a spirited fellow. 

Bizz, a btistle. 

Bizzies, buzzes. 

Blae, blue. 



ZS1 



358 



GLOSSARY. 



Blate, shamefaced. 

Blaudin', pelting. 

Blaw, to blow. 

Blaws, blows. 

Bleerit, bleared. 

Bleezin, blazing. 

Blellum, an idle-talking fellow. 

Blether, the bladder. 

Blethers, 7ionsense. 

Bleth'rin, talking idly. 

Blin', blind. 

Blinks, looks smilingly. 

Blinkin , S7nirkittg. 

Blude, blood. 

Bluid, blood. 

Blypes, large pieces. 

Boddle, a small coin. 

Bogles, ghosts. 

Bonnie, beautiful. 

Bonnocks, thick cakes of oatmeal bread. 

Boortrees, elder shrubs. 

Bouses, drinks. 

Bow-kail, cabbage. 

Brae, the slope of a hill. 

Braing't, reeled forivard. 

Brak, did break. 

Branks, a kind of woode^t curb for 

horses. 
Brattle, a short race. 
Braw, Jiafidsome. 
Brawly, perfectly. 

Breastit, did spring up or forward. 
Yjree, j7iice, liquid. 
Brent, straight. 
Brig, bridge. 
Briskit, breast. 
Brock, a badger. 
Brose, oatmeal pottage. 
Brunstane, brijnsioj/e. 
Brunt, bitrned. 

Buirdly, strong, imposing-looking. 
Bum-clock, a beetle. 
Burdies, damsels. 
Bure, bore, did bear. 



Burns, streams. 

Bumie, dim. of burti. 

But, without. 

But an' ben, kitchen atid parlor. 

Byre, cow-hotise. 

Ca', to drive. 

Ca's, calls. 

Ca't, called. 

Cairn, rustic inonument, or heap of 
stones. 

Calf-ward, a small enclosure for calves. 

Callans, boys. 

Caller, fresh. 

Cam, came. 

Cannie, carefully, softly. 

Cantie, in high spirits. 

Cantrip, a char in, a spell 

Cape-stane, cope-stone. 

Carlin, an old woinan. 

Cauk and keel, chalk and red clay. 

Chapman, a peddler. 

Chiels, young fellows. 

Chimla, chimney. 

Chows, chews. 

Clachan, a hamlet. 

Clap, a clapper. 

Clarkit, wrote. 

Clatter, to talk idly. 

Claut, to s?iatch at, to lay hold of a quan- 
tity scraped together by niggardli- 
ness. 

Clautet, scraped. 

Claver, clover. 

Clavers, idle stories. 

Claw, scratch. 

Cleed, to clothe. 

Cleekit, linked themselves. 

Clishmaclaver, idle cottversaiioji. 

Cloot, the hoof. 

Clootie, Satan. 

Clout, to patch. 

Clud, a chntd. 

Coble, a fishing-boat. 



GLOSSARY, 



F 



359 



Cog, a wooden dish. 
Coggie, dim. of cog. 
Coois, /ools, ninnies. 
Cookit, that appeared and disappeared 
by Jits. 

Coost, did cast. 

Coot, ivater/owl. 

Cootie, a ^vooden kitchen dish. 

Corn't, fed with oats. 

Couthie, kifidly, loving. 

Cowpit, tumbled 

Cowt, a colt. 

Crack, a story or Jiarangtie. 

Craig, the throat. 

Craiks, landrails. 

Crambo-jingle, rhyjnes. 

Cranreuch, hoarfrost. 

Craw, to crow. 

Creeshie, greasy. 

Croods, coos. 

Croon, a hollow and continued moan. . 

Crouchie, crook-backed. 

Crouse, gleefully, with spirit. 

Curpin, the crupper. 

Curple, the crupper. 

Cushats, wood-pigeo7LS. 

Custock, the centre of a stem of cab- 
bage. 

Daimen-icker, afi ear of corn now and 

then. 
Dappl't, dappled. 
Darklings, darkling. 
Daur't, dared. 

Daut, to fondle, to make much of. 
Dsiv/tit, fondled, caressed. 
Daurk, a day^s labor. 
Deave, to deafen. 
Deil, devil. 

Deil haet, devil a thing. 
Deleerit, delirious. 
Ding, to surpass. 
Dinner'd, dieted. 
Dirl, a vibrating blow. 



Dizzen, a dozen. 

Donsie, unlucky. 

Dools, sorrows. 

Douce, grave, sober. 

Doure, stubborti. 

Dow, do, can. 

Dowie, low-spirited. 

Drappie, dim. of drap. 

Dreeping, drippiiig- 

Dreigh, tedious. 

Drift, a drove. Fell aff the drift, wan- 
dered frotn his companions. 

Droddum, tJie breech. 

Drone, the bagpipe. 

Droop-rumpl't, droopiitg to7vard tlie 
crupper. 

Droukit, wet, drenched. 

Drouthy, thirsty. 

Drumly, muddy. 

Duds, garmejits. 

Duddie, ragged. 

Duddies, garments. 

Dusht, pushed by a ram or ox. 

Een, eyes. 

Eerie, scared, dreading spirits. 

Eild, age. 

Eldritch , frightftd. 

Erse, Gaelic. 

Ettle, design. 

Eydent, diligetit. 

Y2i,fall. 

Fa', lot. 

¥z.Q,foe. 

Fairin, a prescttt, a reward. 

Y2inA,fo7ind. 

Fash, trouble myself. 

Fash't, troubled. 

Fasten-een, Fastens-even. 

Fatt'rels, ribbon-e^ids. 

Faught, a fight. 

Faulding, /^/d?m^. 

Y2.\x%^,fcdse. 



36o 



GLOSSARY. 



G 



Fawsont, seemly. 

Feat, spruce. 

Fecht, tofight. 

Feg, a fig. 

Fell, ^^ _/f^5A ivnncdiately under the 
skin. 

Fen, a successful struggle, a shift. 

Fend, to keep off. 

Ferlie, to wonder. 

Fetch't, pulled interinittently. 

Fidge, to fidget. 

Y\A.^n-i7i\\\, fidgetting with eagerness. 

Fiel, soft, stnooth. 

Fient, a petty oath. The fient a, the devil 
a bit of. 

Fillie, a filly. 

Y It, foot. 

Fittie-lan, the near horse of tlie hind- 
most pair in the plough. 

Flainen, fla7i7iel. 

Flatt'rin, flattering. 

Fleech'd, supplicated. 

Fleesh, a fleece. 

Fley'd, scared. 

Flichterin', fluttering. 

Flingin-tree, a flail. 

YYiskii, fretted. 

Flit, remove. 

Fodgel, squat or plump. 

Foord, a ford. 

Yorhe.?irs, forefathers. 

Forbye, besides. 

Forf oughten , fatigued. 

Forgather, to fjiake acquaintance with. 

Forgather'd, viet. 

Forrit, forward. 

Yo\x,full. 

Foughten, troubled. 

Fouth, an abundance. 

YrdiQ,fro7n. 

¥\x\fzdl. 

Fuff't, did blow. 

Gabs, tongues. 



Gaed, walked. 

Gaets, fnanners. 

Gane, gone. 

Gang, to go. 

Gar, to make. 

Gar't, tnade. 

Gash, sagacious. 

Gashin, conversing. 

Gate, manner. 

Gaun, going. 

Ga.v/cie, jolly, large. 

Gear, wealth, goods. 

Geordie, George. The yellow letter'd 

Geordie, a guiiiea. 
Ghaists, ghosts. 
Gie, give. 
Gied, gave. 
Gif , if 

Gilpey, a young girl. 
Gizz, a wig. 
Glaikit, thoughtless. 
Glaizie, glittering. 
Gleg, sharp. 
Glinted, glanced. 
Gloaniin, twilight. 
Glowr'd, looked earnestly , stared. 
Goavan, looking round with a strange 

inquiring gaze, starifig stupidly. 
Gowan, the daisy. 
Gowd, gold. 
Graip, a prronged instrument for clean- 

i7tg stables. 
Graith, harttess, field implements. 
Granes, groans. 
Grape, to grope. 
Grapit, groped. 
Grat, wept. 
Gree, a prize. 
Gree't, agreed. 
Grozet, a gooseberry. 
Grumphie, tlte sow. 
Grunstane, a grindstone. 
Gude, tlte Sup>reme Being. 
Guid, good. 



H 



GLOSSARY. 



K 



361 



Ha', hall. 

Ha' Bible, hall-Bible. 

Hae, have. 

here (in the sense of take). 
Haffets, the temples. 
Haffet locks, locks at the temples. 
Hafflins, partly. 
Hain, to spare, to save. 
Hain'd, spared. 
Haith, a petty oath. 
Haivers, idle talk. 
Hale, whole, entire. 
Hallan, a particular partition wall in a 

cottage, 
Hame, home. 
Hamely, homely. 
Han', hajid. 
Hansel, hansel throne, a throfie tiewly 

inherited. 
Hap, to wrap. 
Happer, a hopper. 
Happing, hopping. 
Har'sts, harvests. 
Hastit, hasted. 
Haud, to hold. 

Haughs, lo^u-lying lands, meadows. 
Haurl, to drag. 
Haurls, drags. 

Haurlin, peeling, dragging off. 
Havins, good ma7iners. 
Hav'rel, half-witted. 
Hawkie, a cow, properly o7ie with a 

white /ace. 
Heapit, heaped. 

Hech, a7t exclamation of wonder. 
Yi^f^X, foretold. 
Heeze, to elevate, to Jwist. 
Hie, high. 
Hilchin, halting. 
Hirplin, limping. 
Histie, dry, barren. 
Hitch, a loop or knot. 
Hizzies, young wotnen. 
Hoast, a cough. 



Hoble, to hobble. 

Hog-shouther, a kind of horse-play by 

jtcstling "with the shoulder. 
Hool, the cniter skin or case. 
Hoolie ! stop. 
Hoord, hoard. 
Hornie, Satan. 
Houlets, ozvls. 
Hov'd, savclled. 
Howe-backit, siaik in the back. 
Howkit, digged. 
Hoy't, urged, 
Hoyte, to amble crazily. 
Hughoc, Hugh. 
Hunder, a htaidred. 
Hurcheon, a hedgefiog. 
Hurdles, hips. 
Hurl, to fall dow}i ruinously. 

Icker, a7i ear of corn. 

Ilka, every. 

Ingine, geni^is, ingemiity. 

Ingle-cheek, the fireside. 

Ingle-lowe, t/ie household fire. 

Ither, other. 

Jad, a jade. 

Jinker, that turns quickly. 

Jinkin, dodging. 

Joctelegs, clasp-kni . 

Jorum, the jug. 

Jouk, to duck. 

Jundie, to justU. 

Kail, broth ^ colewort. 

Kail-runt, the stem of the colewort. 

Kain, far 7n produce paid as retit. 

Kebbuck, a cheese. 

Kebbuck-heel, the reviaining portion of 

a clieese. 
Keekit, peeped. 
Keeks, peeps. 
Ken, know. 
Kin', kind. 



362 



K 



GLOSSARY. 



N 



King's-hood, a part of the entrails of an 
ox. 

Kirn, a churn. 

Kirsen, to christen. 

Kittle, to tickle. 

Kiutlin, cuddling. 

Knappin-hammers, Jiamnters for break- 
ing stones. 

Knowe, a hillock. 

Knurlin, a dwarf 

Kye, C01.US. 

Kyle, a district of Ayrshire. 

Kythe, discover. 

Laggen, the angle between the side and 

bottom of a tvooden dish. 
Laigh, lo^iU. 
Lairing, wading and sitiking in snow 

or mud. 
Laith, loath. 
Laithfu', bashful. 
Lang, long. 
Langer, longer. 
Lap, did leap. 
Lave, tlie rest. 
Lav'rocks, larks. 
Leal, tr7te. 
Lee-lang, live-long. 
Leeze me on, / afu liappy in thee, or 

pyroud of thee. 
Leister, a three-barbed instrument for 

sticking fish. 
Ley crap, lea crop. 
Lift, heaven. 
Limbies, dim. of limbs. 
Limmer, a jnistress. 
Lin, a ivaterfall. 
Linkin, tripping. 
Lint, fiax. Sin lint was i' the bell, 

since flax was in flower. 
Linties, linnets. 
Lo'ed, loved. 
Loof , pahn of the hand. 
Loot, did let. 



Lough, a lake. 

Lowpin, leapifig. 

Lows' d, loosed. 

Lug, tlie ear. 

Luggies, small wooden disJies with 

}ia?idles. 
Lunt, a column of smoke. 
Lunlin, smoking. 
Lyart, gray. 

Mae, more. 

Mair, more. 

Mailie, Molly. 

Mang, among. 

Mar's year, 1715, the year of Mar^s re- 

bellion. 
Maukin, a hare. 
Maun, must. 

Maunna, miist not. . 

Maut, tnalt. 
Mawin, mowing. 
Meere, a mare. 
Meikle, as much, 
Mense, good manners. 
Messin, a dog of mixed breeds. 
Midden-hole, t/ie dunghill. 
Minnie, mother. 
Mirk, dark. 
Misca'd, abused. 
Mislear'd, mischievous. 
Mist, ftzissed. 
Moil, work. 
Mony, many. 
Moss, a morass. 
Mou, mo7ith. 
Moudieworts, moles. 
Muckle, great, big. 
Muslin-kail, broth composed simply of 

water, shelled barley , and greens, 

Na', not. 
Nae, no. 

Naething, fwthing. 
Nane, none. 



N 



GLOSSARY, 



36, 



Nappy, ale. 

Neuk, nook, corner. 

Nick, to break, to sever sjidde^ily. 

Nicket, cut off. 

Niest, next. 

Nieves,y?j/j. 

Niffer, exchange. 

Nits, Tmts. 

Nocht, nothing. 

0\ of. 

Ony, any, 

Orra, supernuvierary. 

Ourie, shivering. 

Outler, nn-housed. 

Owre, over. 

Painch, stomach. 

Paitricks, partridges. 

Parritch, oatmeal boiled in water, stira- 
bout. 

Parritch-pats, porridge-pots. 

Pat, put. 

Pattle, a plough-staff. 

Paughty, Jiaughty. 

Paukie, cunning, sly. 

Pay't, paid. 

Pechan, the stomach. 

Pechin, panting. 

Pickle, a small quantity. 

Pit, put. 

Plack, an old Scotch coin, the third part 
of a Scotch pe?iny, tzvelve of which 
make an English penny. 

Pleugh, plough. 

Poeks, wallets. 

Poortith, poverty. 

Pou, to pull. 

Poussie, a hare. 

Pow, the head, the sktill. 

Prent, print. 

Prie'd, tasted. 

Prief , proof. 

Primsie, dejmire, precise. 

Pu', to pull. 



Quaick, quack. 

Quaukin, qtiaking. 

Quey, a co^vfrom one year to two years 

old. 
Quo', guoth. 

Ragweed, the plant ragzvort. 

Rair, to roar. 

Raize, to madden, to ifijlatnc. 

Ram-stam , forvuard. 

Rape, a rope. 

Rasli-buss, a bush of rushes. 

Rattan, a rat. 

Rattons, rats. 

Raught, reached. 

Rax, to stretch. 

Ream, cream. 

Reave, rove. 

Red, counsel. 

Reekin, smokitig. 

Reekit, smoked. 

Reestit, withered, singed. 

Rief, slyness. 

Rig, a ridge. 

Riggin, rafters. 

Rigwoodie, withered, sapless. 

Rin, run. 

Ripp, a handfd of untJirashcd corn. 

Ripps, Juitidfuls. 

Riskit, made a noise like the tearing of 

roots. 
Rive, to burst. 
Rives, tears to pieces. 
Rock, a distaff. 
Rockin, a social gathering, the women 

spinning on the rock or distaff. 
Rung, a C7(dgel. 
Runts, tfie stems of cabbage. 

Sae, so. 

Sair, sore. 

Sairly, sorely. 

Sark, a shirt. 

Sarkit, provided in shirts. 



3^4 



GLOSSARY. 



Sauce, scorn, insolence. 

Saugh, the ivillcnv. 

Saugh woodies, ropes viade of willow 

withes. 
Saumont, salvton. 
Saut, salt. 

Saut buckets, salt buckets. 
Sax, six. 
Scaur, to scare. 
Scaur, frig htened. 
Scaud, to scald. 
Scawl, a scold. 
Scho, she. 

Scones, barley cakes. 
Screed, a tear, a rent. 
Scrieven, gliding easily. 
Sell't, sold. 
Shaw, shcnv. 
Shaws, wooded dells. 
Sherra-moor, SJieriff-inuir. 
Sheugh, a trench. 
Shog, a shock. 
Shoon, shoes. 
Shore, to threaten. 
Shouther, shoulder 
Sic, such. 
Sicker, secure. 
Siller, money. 
Simmer, sutnmer. 
Sin', since. 
Skaith, injury. 
Skeigh, high-mettled. 
Skellum, a worthless /ello7v. 
Skelp, a slap. 
Skelpie-limmer, a technical term in 

fe7nale scolding. 
Skinklin, glittering. 
Skirl, to shriek. 
Sklent, to deviate from truth. 
Sklented, slatited. 
Sklentin, slanting. 
Skrieigh, to scream. 
Slaps, flashes. 
Slee, shy. 



Sleeest, slyest. 

Sleekit, sleek. 

Slypet, slipped, fell over. 

Sma', small. 

Smeddum, dust, powder. 

Smeek, smoke. 

Smiddy, a smithy. 

Smoor'd, smotltered. 

Smoutie, smzitty 

Smytrie, a Jiiimber huddled together . 

Snapper, to stuinble. 

Snash, abuse, impertinence. 

Snaw broo, jnelted snow. 

Snawie, stiowy. ^ 

Snaw, sno7v. 

Sued, to lop, to cut. 

Snell, bitter, biting. 

Sneeshin-mill, a sfiuff-box. 

Snick, tJie latchet of a door. 

Snool, to cringe, to submit tamely, 

Snoov't, wc7it sinoothly. 

Snowkit, snuffed. 

Sodger, a soldier. 

Soger, a soldier. 

Sons'ie, J oily, comely. 

Sough, a heavy sigh. 

Sowth, to try oiier a tune with a low 

ivhistle. 
Sowther, to solder, to make up. 
Spairges, cLishes or scatters about, 
Spak, spake. 
Spate, a flood. 
Spavie, a disease. 
Spean, to wean. 
Speel, to climb. 
Speel'd, clitnbed. 
Spence, the country parlor. 
Spier, to ask, to inquire. 
Spier'd, inquired. 
Spleuchan, a tobacco-pouch. 
Sprackled, clambered. 
Sprattle, to struggle. 
Spritty, full of spirits. 
Spunkies, Wills d' tJie wisp. 



CLOSSAKY. 



!65 



Spurtle, a stick tvith ivhich porridge, 
broth f etc.y are stirred while boil- 
ing. 

Squattle, to sprawl. 

Stacher't, staggered. 

Staggie, dim. of stag. 

Stanes, stones. 

Stank, a pool or pond. 

Stark, strong. 

Starns, stars. 

Staukin, stalking. 

Stechin, craimni7tg, paitting with re- 
pletioji. 

Steek, to close. 

Steeks, stitches, retiadations. 

Steeve,_/fr;//, compacted. 

Sten't, reared. 

Steyest, steepest. 

Stibble-rig, tlie reaper in harvest who 
takes the lead. 

Stimpart, a7i eighth part of a Winches- 
ter btishel. 

Stirk, a cow or bullock a year old. 

Stockit, stocked. 

Stocks, plants of cabbage. 

Stoor, so7cndifig Jwllowly or hoarsely. 

Stoure, dzist. 

Stownlins, by stealth. 

Stoyte, to stninble. 

Strae, a fair strae-death, a natural 
death. 

Streekit, stretched. Streekit owre, 
stretched across. 

Strunt, spirituous liqtcor of any kind. 

Sturt, to molest, to vex. 

Sugh, a rushing sound. 

Sumphs, stupid felloTvs. 

Swank, stately. 

Swat, did sweat. 

Swats, ale. 

Swirl, a curve. 

Swith, swift. 

S wither, doubt. 

Syne, since. 



Tackets, a kind of nails for driving into 

the heels of shoes. 
Tae, toe. 
Taen, taken. 
Tak, to take. 
Tawie, tJiat allozvs itself peaceably to be 

handled. 
Tawted, matted, uncombed. 
Teats, small quantities. 
Teen, provocation, cJiagrin. 
Tent, to take heed. 
Tentie, heedfid. 
Thack an rape, clothes. 
Theekit, tJuitched, covered up, secured. 
Thegither, together. 
Thole, to suffer, to endure. 
Thowes, tJiaws. 
Thrang, busy. 
Thraw, to sprain or twist. 
Thrawin, twisting. 
Thretteen, thirteen. 
Throwther, a' throwther, through-other, 

pell-mell. 
Till't, to it. 
Timmer, tijnber. 
Timmer propt, ti7nber propt. 
Tinkler, a tinker. 
Tippence, tzuopetice. 
Tirl, to strip. 

Tocher, 7tiarriage portion. 
'YoA%, foxes. 
Toom, ejnpty. 
Toop, a ram. 
Towmond, a twelvemonth. 
Toy, a very old fashion of female Jiead- 

dress. 
Toyte, to totter. 

Transmugrify'd, metamorphosed. 
Trickle, tricksy. 
Trig, spruce, tieat. 
Trysted, hour for love meetings. 
Twa, ttvo. 

Twal, twelve o'' clock. 
Twalpennie worth, twelvepentty worth. 



S66 



GLOSSAKY, 



Tyke, a vagrant dog. 

Unco, very. 

Uncos, strange things, nezvs of tJie coun- 
try side. 
Unkend, unknown. 

Vauntie,/r£7«(/, in high spirits. 
Vera, very. 

Wa', a wall. 

Wad, would. 

Wae, sorroaniftd. 

Wal'd, chose. 

Walie, ample, large. 

Wallop in a tow, to Juitig one's self- 

Waly, ample. 

Wame, the belly. 

Wanrestfu', restless. 

Wark-ulme, a tool to work with. 

Warld, world. 

Warlock, a wizard. 

Warlock-breef, wizard-spell. 

Warsle, to wrestle. 

Warst, worst. 

Warstl'd, wrestled, 

Water-brose, made of water, without 

■milk or butter. 
Wattle, a %vand. 
Wauble, to swifig, to reel. 
Waukit, thickened with toil. 
Waukrife, wakeful. 
Waur, to fight, to defeat. 
Waur't, zvorsted. 
Weans, children. 
Wee, Utile. 

Weeder-dips, weeder or hoe. 
Weel, well. 
Westlin, western. 
Wha, 7vho. 
Whaizle, to wlieeze. 
Whalpit, whelped. 



Whare, where. 

Whase, whose. 

Whiddin, running as a hare. 

Whins, yi^rs^ bushes. 

Whisht, peace. Held my whist, kept 
silence. 

Whiskit, whisked. 

Whun-stane, ivhinstotie, granite. 

Whyles, sometitnes. 

Wi', with. 

Wiel, a small whirlpool. 

Wight, strong, powerful, 

Willie-waught, a hearty draught. 

Willyart, luild, strange, timid. 

Wimplin, waving, meandering. 

Win', wind. 

Winna, will not. 

Winnock-bunker, a seat in a ivindo^u. 

Winuocks, windows. 

Wintle, a staggering motion. 

Wonner, a wonder, a contemptuous ap- 
pellation. 

Woo', wool. 

Woodie, the gallows. 

Wooer-babs, garters knotted below the 
knee in a coJtple of loops. 

Wow, an exclamation of pleasure or 
ivonder. 

Wyle, to beguile, to decoy. 

Wyliecoat, a fla?i7iel vest. 

Yell, barren. As yell's the VaW, giving 

no more milk than the btdl. 
Yerket, jerked, lashed. 
Yestreen, yesternight. 
Yill, ale. 

Yill-caup, ale-stottp. 
Yird, earth. 

Yokin, yoking, a bout, a set to. 
Yont, beyond. 
Yowes, ewes. 
Yule, Christmas. 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES. 



PAGE 

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever . 193 

A guid New-Year I wish thee, 99 

Altho' thou maun never be mine . 227 

A rose-bud by my early walk . . 153 

As I stood by yon roofless tower . 211 

As Mailie an' her lambs thegither . 10 

Behind yon hills where Lugar flows, 5 

Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes . 200 

By Ochtertyre grows the aik . . 154 

Cauld blaws the wind 160 

Come boat me o'er 144 

Contented wi' little, and cantie %vi' 

mair 218 

Dear Smith, the slee'st, paukie 

thief 51 

Does haughty Gaul invasion threat ? 22 1 

Duncan Gray came here to woo . 19S 

Edina! Scotia's darling seat ! . . 139 
Fair maid, you need not take the 

hint 146 

Farewell, ye dungeons dark and 

strong 157 

Farewell to the Highlands . . . 165 

Flow gently, sweet Afton . . . 192 

Go fetch me a pint o' wine . . . 160 

Guid-mornin to your Majesty . . 121 
Hail, Poesie ! thou Nymph re- 

serv'd 22S 

Hark! the Mavis' e'ening sang . 213 
Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin 

ferlie ! 115 

Hear, Land o' Cakes, and brither 

Scots 168 

Here awa, there awa, wandering 

Willie f 201 



PAGE 

How pleasant the banks of the 

clear-winding Devon .... 155 

I mind it weel, in early date . . . 142 
I'm three times doubly o'er your 

debtor 21 

I gat your letter, winsome Willie . 43 
I lang hae thought, my youthfu' 

friend 117 

Inhuman man ! curse on thy barb'- 

rous art 161 

Is there a whim-inspired fool . . 103 

Is there, for honest poverty . . . 220 

It was upon a Lammas night . . 2 

It was the charming month of May, 216 

John Anderson my jo, John . . . 162 

Lament in rhyme, lament in prose, 12 

My blessing on ye, sonsie wife . 141 
My Chloris, mark how green the 

groves 215 

My heart is a breaking, dear Tittie, 1 70 
My Lord, I know your noble ear . 147 
My lov'd, my honoured, much re- 
spected friend 81 

My luve is like a red, red rose . . 214 

Nae gentle dames, tho' e'er sae fair, 133 
No sculptur'd marble here, nor 

pompous lay 145 

Now in her green mantle blytiie 

Nature arrays 219 

Now nature clees the flowery lea • 217 
Now Nature hangs her mantle 

green 184 

Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, 210 
Now simmer blinks on flowery 

braes 164 



367 



3^^ 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES. 



PAGE 

Now spring has clad the groves in 

green 225 

Now westlin winds and slaught'- 

ring guns 4 

O Death ! thou tyrant fell and 

bloody ! 179 

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw . 156 

O leeze me on my spinnin-wheel . 196 

O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide, 205 

O Mary, at thy window be . . . 7 

O, once I lov'd a bonnie lass . . i 

O saw ye bonnie Lesley .... 197 

O stay, sweet warbling woodlark . 223 
O Thou dread Power, who reign'st 

above 129 

O Thou great Being ! what Thou 

art 9 

O thou pale Orb ; that silent shines, 126 
O Thou wha in the Heavens dost 

dwell 28 

O thou ! whatever title suit thee . 23 

O, were I on Parnassus' hill . . 156 

O, wert thou in the cauld blast . . 228 

O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut . 163 

O ye wha are sae guid yoursel . . 32 

Powers celestial, whose protection, 132 

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled . 20S 

See ! the smoking bowl before us . 58 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 1 59 

Sing on, sweet Thrush .... 209 
Some books are lies frae end to 

end 89 

Streams that glide in orient plains, 151 
The Catrine woods were yellow 

seen 138 

The Deil cam fiddling thro' the 

town 194 

The gloomy night is gath'ring fast, 130 

The lovely lass o' I verness . . . 151 

There was a lass, and she was fair, 206 

There was a lad was born in Kyle, 98 



PAGE 

There's naught but care on ev'ry 

han' 14 

The sun had clos'd the winter day, 70 
The Thames flows proudly to the 

sea 1S3 

The wind blew hollow frae the hills, 1S6 

The wintry west extends his blast . S 

This wot ye all whom it concerns . 135 
Thou ling'ring star, with lessening 

ray 164 

'Tis Friendship's pledge .... 224 

True-hearted was he 201 

'Twas even — the dewy fields were 

green 136 

'Twas in that place o' Scotland's 

isle 105 

Upon that night when Fairies light, 59 

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r 113 
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous 

beastie 68 

When biting Boreas, fell and doure, 94 
When chapman billies leave the 

street 172 

When chill November's surly blast, 34 
When wild war's deadly blast was 

blawn 202 

While at the stook the sheavers 

cow'r 47 

While briers an' woodbines bud- 
ding green 38 

While virgin Spring 191 

While winds frae aff Ben-Lomoiul 

blaw 15 

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 131 
Wow, but your letter made me 

vauntie 166 

Ye banks, and braes, and streams 

around 195 

Ye banks and braes o' bonnie 

Doon 189 

Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, 190 



REFERENCES. 



BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL. 

Adamson, a. R. Rambles through the Land of Burns. 

Andrews, S. Our Great Writers. 

Arnold, M. The St^idy of Poetry. {Essays in Criticism) 

Bayne, p. Two Great Englishwomen, with an Essay on Poetry. 

Blackie, J. S. Scottish Song. 

Blackie, J. S. Burns. {Great Writers) 

Brooke, S. A. Theology in the English Poets. 

Burroughs, J. Birds a?id Poets. 

Carlyle, T. Essay on Burns. 

Couch, T. Quiller. Adventures in Criticism. 

Dawson, W. J. Makers of Modern Literature. 

Dennis, J. Heroes of Literature. 

Douglas, W. C. Introduction to Patersoti edition. 

Emerson, R. W. Miscellanies. 

Fergusson, R. Poems. 

Giles, H. Illustrations of Genius. 

Hawthorne, N. Our Old Home. 

Hazlitt, W. Lectures oji the English Poets. 

HowiTT, W. Homes and Haunts of the Poets. 

Jacks, W. Btirns in Other Tongues. 

Jolly, W. Burns at Mossgiel. 

Keats, J. Life, Letters, and Literary Remains: R. M. Milnes, Editor. 

Vol. i., pp. 156 and 159. 
Kingsley, C. Literary Essays. 
Lang, A. Letters to Dead Authors. 
Lowell, J. R. Poems. Incident in a Railroad Car. 
Minto, W. Literature of the Georgian Era. 
MoiR, D. M. Poems. 

MoiR, D. M. Poetical Literature of the Last Half Cetitury. 
NiCHOL, John. Burns. {Encyclopcedia Britan7iica.) 



370 REFERENCES. 

Oliphant, M. O. Literary History of England. Vol. i. 

Ramsay, A. Poems. 

Reed, H. Lectures on British Poets. 

Rhys, E. Lyrical Poems of Burns. 

Rogers, C. Goiealogical Memoirs of the Family of Robert Btirfts. 

Ross, J. D. Round Biirns^s Grave. 

Ross, J. D. Bumsiaiia. 

RossETTi, W. M. Lives of Famous Poets. 

Saintsbury, G, Literature of the Nineteenth Century. 

Shairp, J. C. Burns. {English Men of Letters^) 

Shairp, J. C. Poetic Interpretatioji of Nature. 

Shairp, J. C. Aspects of Poetry. 

Smith, Alexander. Preface to Macmillan's Edition of Burtis. 

Stedman, E. C. Nature of Poetry. 

Stephen, L. Dictio7iary of Natiotial Biography. 

Stevenson, R. L. Familiar Studies in Men and Books. 

Veitch, J. Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry. 

Walker, H. Three Centuries of Scottish Songs, 

Ward, T. H. English Poets. Vol. iii. 

Watson, W. At the Tomb of Burns. 

Whittier, J. G. Poems. {Burns.) 

Wilson, J. Works. 

Winter, W. Gray Days and Gold. 

Wordsworth, W. Poems. 

Wordsworth, W. Prose. Vol. ii. 

Wordsworth, D. Recollections of a Tour in Scotland. 

For Bibliography of Burns consult J. S. Blackie, Burns. 

REFERENCES TO SUBJECTS TREATED IN THE PREFACE. 

Arnold, M. Celtic Literature. 

Blackie, J. S. Language and Literature of the Scottish Highlands. * 

Book of the Dean of Lismore. 

Mackenzie. Beauties of Gaelic Poetry. 

Shairp, J. C. Poetry of the Scottish Highlands. {Aspects of Poetry^ 

Sharp, E. Lyra Celtica. 

Skene, W. F. Celtic Scotland. 

Veitch, J. History and Poetry of the Scottish Border. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Marcli 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 154 928 5 









V- 






Y^^^ 

' ^^';^-'. 






-i- ? y; 



^^' ^ 
"^^.1 






S '^^^-^Ji 



/ yA'/''^'' 



